Steady Red Means Stop Casefile 5
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Former attorney and now television reporter/host Karen Cross has a new show and imagine who her special interview-e is this week!
1. Chapter 1

_**STEADY RED MEANS STOP (Case-file #5)**_

**Author: **G. Waldo  
><strong>Rating: <strong>Case-fic'. Light humour. **Pairing:** Jane/Cho (Chane?) _light_ plus Jane/Lisbon friendship.  
><strong>Characters: <strong>Jane, Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby, Van Pelt, Karen Cross and Red John.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>_Former attorney and now television reporter/host Karen Cross has a new show and imagine who her special interview-e is this week!_**Disclaimer: **Not mine though I wish he was.

CBI

"Mister Jane? – _Patrick!"_

Jane turned to see a tall lithe woman with blonde perfectly arranged shoulder-length hair striding quickly to him on long energetic legs. Had she been sweet Jenna from the CBI clerking staff he would have smiled and wished her a pleasant morning, but it was not Jenna, it was Karen Cross in her expensive cream coloured suit over too tight skirt - a woman he had seen far too much of lately.

"Oh, good morning, Karen." Jane looked around wishing there was someone familiar nearby to talk to so he could make a fast excuse and leave. Alas, Karen had managed to corner him once again, alone and undefended.

"Patrick, I keep running into you."

Jane nodded indulgently. "Ah, "running into me"?" He shrugged at her lame explanation for her recent stalking. "Okay. I guess that works."

"Have you thought over what we talked about?"

Jane was growing tired of the woman's trailing him everywhere. "Uh, _you_ talked about me coming on your new show and I said no. That decision hasn't changed in the last week." He turned to make a get-away when Karen placed a hand on his forearm. He looked down at her long finger-nails. They were painted blood red. Predatory nails.

She smiled and gently held on. "Oh come on, Patrick, just hear me out. I promise this will be a good experience; people want to know about you. This last year's been hard on you, we both know it, and now my viewers want to know it, too. You're a celebrity. What harm could it do to just talk to them, tell them your story?"

"My story?" Jane repeated. "My story is mine and for me. Whatever part of my life is still private I'd like to keep that way. And I hate cameras, as you know. Thanks anyway, Karen."

But she did not let go of his arm, squeezing it just once. It was enough to hold him back for just another few seconds. All she needed. "Look, I'm sorry I've bothered you with this, I guess I've worn out my welcome around here but I'm a reporter – can you blame me for digging?" Another firm squeeze, higher up his arm. "Tell you what - let me make it up to you. Let me buy you breakfast, just you and me, no cameras. And _no_ shop-talk - I swear."

Jane just as gently removed her arm from his. "Thanks, Karen, I appreciate the offer but work calls." He walked away, waving over his shoulder. "Bye, Karen. Be well."

Karen Cross, former lawyer and now successful television host reached into her pocket and removed her tiny digital recorder. Pressing a button, she switched it off. "Damn." She hadn't even gotten enough for a promo-slot.

Out of nowhere a man appeared beside her, holding a mobile camcorder in one hand. He switched it off. "You ready to give it up now, Karen? This is the fourth time you've tried to nail Jane down this month. Jerry expects us back at ten. You remember Jerry, our producer? We're wasting our time with this guy. He's _not_ going to come on the show."

Karen watched Patrick Jane disappear up the stairs and in through the doors of CBI's main sand-coloured building. She tossed her camera man a sardonic eyebrow. "When do_ I_ give up, Zack? _Never_, that's when." She walked back to the van with hard, angry steps. "My producer's an idiot. A bloody D.A? An _old_ and not even attractive D.A. and his overweight slut? _This_ is the kind of crap he thinks will keep my ratings up? What a_ moron."_

Zack sighed. Karen was the best but she was not an easy woman to work with. "Let's go get some breakfast. I haven't eaten yet."

Karen waved away that idea and slammed the passenger door. "Come on." She barked. "I've got a few favours I can cash in and when I do Jane will be on my show. By next month." She predicted. "Trust me, by next month he'll be there. I'll show that idiot producer how to run a talk show. With Patrick Jane in the spot light, our numbers will go so through the roof Jerry will have an _orgasm_."

CBI

**CBI – A week later.**

Lisbon turned on the outer office's only large screen computer and switched to "TV Mode". On any day when the team drifted in early they sometimes took in the morning news together. Everyone except Jane who almost never came in early or even on time for that matter.

"_And that was our news update." _said the pretty brunette news woman with the stiff smile. "_Please join us at six for complete new, sports and weather. And now_ _back to Cross-Hairs with host Karen Cross."_

The image switched to a blonde reporter with whom they were all familiar. A tall, slender woman named Karen Cross who was ever eager for a story that would boost her ratings. To her credit Cross-Hairs had gained immediate appeal and after being on the air for just on five months her viewer numbers were already dwarfing those of her previous show.

Cross was also the reporter who had tirelessly dogged the team in general and Jane in particular, during some of their more sensational cases. Red John cases were Karen's favourite ghoulish profession-related interest and when it was a Red John case the team were pursuing, she hardly gave Jane a moment's peace.

_"Good morning. I'm Karen Cross and this is Cross-Hairs. Today we'll be speaking with former Sacramento County District Attorney Mitchell Allen whose routine we have interrupted to bring him here and place him directly in our crosshairs – where we will fire off the hard questions regarding his alleged illicit affair with recent grand jurist Stephanie Monahan. Will he deny the allegations? Does he plan to resign or will some other revelation come to light? Stayed tuned. We'll be back in a moment."_

Rigsby drifted in with a coffee, shedding his windbreaker and suit jacket. "Her again?" She seemed to be all over the TV.

Lisbon said, not managing to keep the contempt completely from her tone "Yeah. I'm surprised she isn't in here on her off hours, going through our desks trying to dig up dirt."

Van Pelt, half-watching a bland commercial about underarm deodorant, said "She preys on people's weaknesses. The guy hasn't even been charged yet and she's trying to prove he's guilty on national television. I hate people that pretend to be nice but aren't."

At that moment Jane walked in, tea in hand, and smiled. "O-o-o, are _my_ ears burning."

Van Pelt threw him a dry look. "You know what I mean, Jane. That's different. You only pretend to be a jerk – _usually _- and it's on the job and anyway who cares about being nice to a criminal?" She threw a hand at the screen. "She's supposed to be fair with her "guests" but she never is. I hate that."

Jane stirred a mug of tea and Lisbon noted it. The dishwasher must be full of dirty tea cups and saucers as Jane would never use a mug otherwise. He said mugs "sucked the heat out" of the tea.

"Come on, Grace." Jane said reasonable. "She's just a greedy media piranha trying to make a living."

"She's already a millionaire. How much money does one person need?" Van Pelt appealed to the fifth member of the team, Cho, with her eyes.

Cho looked up from his newspaper. His opinion was succinct. "Jane's right. She's a land shark."

Van Pelt looked back to the screen. The string of commercials was almost over.

Leaving the debate of Cross's moral rectitude, or lack thereof, behind, Jane watched the program, settling into his worse for wear leather couch with a sigh.

Lisbon never felt more at home when she was with these four people, and she swore she never saw any among them look as content as Jane did when he was sitting in that spot in early morning with a cup of tea in his hand. So would a wealthy banker look as he fired up his first twenty-dollar cigar of the day.

"_Hello once again, I'm Karen Cross and this is Cross-Hairs. Today we will be speaking with Sacramento County District Attorney Mitchell Allen, questioning him on his alleged secret affair with former grand jurist Stephanie Monahan, but first..."_

Karen, in a signature move, stepped closer to the camera as it zoomed in, staring intently into it and dropping her former half-smile for a more serious, unblinking look._ "But first I have an appeal to make to one of our own more well-known Sacramento residents – CBI consultant Patrick Jane."_

Jane looked up from his momentary contentment and Lisbon's guts told her that their day was about to begin in earnest.

"_Patrick Jane is a consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation. He works with the homicide division - in particular on serial killer cases, the most famous being the serial killer known as Red John. Red John is believed responsible for over thirty-five murders and he is still at large and **still killing**. Red John, interestingly enough, was also the man who took the lives of Patrick Jane's own family, murdering his wife Angela and only child, a beautiful daughter named Charlotte."_

"What the hell is she doing?" Rigsby asked rhetorically. "She knows it's dangerous to talk about Red John on TV – what he's capable of. He could target _her_."

Jane said nothing until Lisbon reached to turn off the screen. He raised a quick hand to stop her. "Wait."

Lisbon stilled her finger but kept it hovered over the OFF button.

Jane offered. "She tried to talk to me last week outside the office about an interview. I said no."

Cho asked. "Then that's more than twice this month, isn't it? She was at the Oakland drug store murders three weeks ago. She talked to you then, right?"

Jane nodded. "Four times so far with a no from me each time."

Lisbon asked "An interview about what?"

Karen Cross, still talking, answered it for them. _"We are anxious to learn of any new leads in the Red John case but we are more interested..." _She paused for effect _"we are more interested in __**you,**__ Patrick Jane. This show is about the individual and his or her struggle and we want to hear about your struggle. How has working for the CBI changed your life since the death of your family? How professionally challenging and personally heart wrenching has it been hunting down the man who murdered your wife and child? We'd like you to give us a call and arrange some time on our show to answer these questions and perhaps others from myself and our viewers. We want to put __**you, **__ Patrick Jane, under the Cross-Hairs. Please call."_

Lisbon asked Jane. "That's the interview she wanted you for?"

Jane nodded, staring at his tea cup. "I guess so."

"Well, I'm glad you said no." Lisbon switched it off. "I'm with Van Pelt, I can't stand that woman. She eats people alive and then picks her teeth with their bones. Cho's right - she _is_ a land shark."

CBI

Bertram called Lisbon and summoned her and Jane into his office.

Lisbon entered and stood before his desk. "Sir, if this is about the drug store murders, we're still chasing down evidence, but I think we're close to an arrest."

Jane entered after her and sat down on Bertram's couch, crossing his legs. Bertram glanced at Lisbon's consultant who was still sipping from the first of no doubt many tea concoctions of the day, a drink that Bertram would not have tasted for fifty bucks. "Thanks for the update, Lisbon but that's not what this is about. Please sit down."

Lisbon did so. Whatever it was Bertram sounded a little more sober than usual. "As you know we have had a budget shortfall for the last year, and as it currently stands, we're over two million in the hole. Now we've managed to squeak by these last two years but that hole is getting bigger and some recommendations have come down to my desk on how to fix it."

Lisbon reassured him. "We'll certainly do our part, sir, we can cut the vehicles down to two if we have to and watch our –"

"All good things, Lisbon but unfortunately that won't be enough. Management has been forced to make some hard choices –"

"Excuse me?" Jane put up his hand. "Why am _I _here?" Boring budget talks were not his concern. Ever.

Bertram slid his hands in his pockets and addressed his most frustrating employee to ever grace his office. "Just have a minute's patience, Jane."

Jane spread his hands in surrender.

Bertram addressed Lisbon again. "They're talking lay-offs, most notably those employees who are seen as a sort of luxury we can no longer afford."

Lisbon understood, swallowing hard at the implication.

Jane understood too. "I'm being _fired_?"

Lisbon could not keep the anger and shock from her face. "With all due respect, sir, are they _nuts_? Jane closes cases – our numbers have gone up thirty-eight percent since he came to work here."

"Thirty-nine, actually." Jane corrected.

Lisbon looked at him over her shoulder. This was not the time for debating.

"Hey," He said, "I read the departmental evaluations too." Then he muttered "_Some_times."

Bertram sat down at his desk. "Until we get our beans in order, they've made it clear - no frivolous employees."

Insulted - "_Frivolous?"_ Jane repeated.

Lisbon shook her head, stunned by this move on the department's heads, those who held the reigns even over Bertram. She was angry. "Did you at least fight for him?"

Bertram frowned his displeasure. "That's out of line, agent. Of course I did and although I came up with a solution, they said it was up to you and your team."

Anxious to un-fire her best investigator and her friend - "What solution?" Lisbon asked. "Whatever it is, we'll make it work."

Bertram tapped his pen on the desk. "Good to know. There is a money source that has come forward. A two million dollar donation, free and clear, to the department."

Lisbon wondered why he didn't mention it earlier. "In exchange for what?"

Bertram's eye drifted over to Jane. "A certain television celebrity has agreed to donate the two million..."

Jane now knew exactly who Bertram was talking about. "Ah, the ice queen has her cold hand on someone's balls once more."

"We need the money, Jane. It's the only way." Bertram reminded him. "You want this department to be split up - or worse - dissolved? It would be a chance for you to do some good."

"_If _ I agree to go on her show." Jane reminded him back.

Bertram nodded. "Yes." He admitted. "If you agree to go on Cross-Hairs, they'll transfer the money immediately and this little money problem goes away."

Lisbon was insulted now, for Jane. "So they agreed to _sell_ one of our agents to that vile woman? What is _your_ take on this, sir?"

Bertram sat back in his chair, rocking it. It had left a distasteful film in his mouth but there were people to whom he owed favours and those people owed other people favours – there was a whole maze of favour exchange within the Bureau, it was the way the human part of the system worked. "My take is they've given us the option. Jane goes on the show or his position is terminated. The decision is yours, Lisbon."

Lisbon was furious but managed not to direct it at her boss. "A pound of flesh served up on national television or his _job_? This is so wrong, sir, I can't even _begin_ to describe how wrong it is."

"I agree, but that's the lay of the land. It is also, by the way, how things sometimes get done. Not everything can always be made..." He looked for a found a word that he thought beast fit "..._comfortable_."

Lisbon shook her head at what she considered a betrayal. "Oh I feel completely reassured." She said sarcastically, and before she really did lose her temper, "With all due respect, sir, this _sucks._ Are we done?"

Bertram nodded to both of them. "Yes, we're done." Looking at Jane he said "I'm sorry, Jane. Best I could do."

Lisbon stormed out.

Jane stood up, not in the least convinced. "Right." The idea of going on television left a cold fear in the hollow of his stomach. "I'm _not_ doing it, by the way."

Bertram frowned. He really had not expected Jane to refuse. "Jane, let me appeal to your reason and sense of team-workmanship. They could make it _Lisbon's_ job that's on the line. I wouldn't be able to stop them. Cho's proven his leadership abilities - he can do the job just as well."

Jane lifted his head in understanding. "Ah." He said. "I have no choice but to agree."

Bertram spread his hands. "Best for all concerned I think."

Jane headlined to the kitchen to make a fresh cup of tea. Cho had voiced his amusement over Jane drinking so much of the caffeinated stuff while claiming it settled him. But the simple, physical motions of boiling the water, preparing the cup and saucer, steeping the tea, removing the tea bag, adding the honey and watching it melt in the cup, then stirring the murky and delicious bergamot-infused liquid were like a choreographed dance that always did their small part in soothing his nerves.

Lisbon found him in the kitchen. "Jane, let me talk to Bertram again about this, they can't make you do this. It's not fair."

"Life is seldom fair, Lisbon, I wouldn't worry about it. I do this and jobs are safe."

Jane was falling into line far too quickly – out-of-character for him in every way she could not list if she tried - and that bothered her most of all.

"_Bullshit."_ She left Jane there stirring his tea and entered Bertram's office once more, ignoring that he was on the phone. "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't believe they talked you into this." She thrust a finger back in the direction of the kitchen. "After what he's been through this year, they're willing to feed Jane to the dogs for a few bucks? It's wrong, it's cruel and as far as I'm concerned it's downright immoral and I am not going to keep quiet about it."

Bertram hung up his phone. "I would hope not, agent."

Lisbon stopped, biting her tongue on the _You bastard! _ that was about to leave her lips. "I-I'm sorry?"

"_Don't _keep quiet about it. Jane's _your_ agent. It's your responsibility to act accordingly. In fact I _expect_ you to make calls and write the proper letters protesting this blatant bribery - I'll even deliver them to the head of the Bureau myself. You may not think much of me, Lisbon, but I do care about what happens to the people under me. This was not my choice. But my job, as it was explained to me very _thoroughly_, was to make it happen."

Lisbon took a deep breath, calming herself. "I see."

Bertram shuffled papers on his desk. "Just do me a favour and make sure Jane stays..." How should he put it without making it sound like he expected them to babysit a grown man? "...out of harm's way."

Lisbon nodded, still feeling sick about the whole thing. "We'll do our best, sir." She backed toward the open door. "I, uh, I'm sorry I burst in. It won't happen again."

Bertram allowed himself some indulgence of humour. Lisbon was a fire-ball. "Of course you will. If you were a soft sap, I wouldn't have kept you in charge."

CBI

Karen Cross met Jane as he entered the studio. "Patrick, how nice of you to have finally agreed." She glanced at the person who had accompanied him, a half smile on her lips while her eyes questioned it. "And Agent Cho is it?"

Cho nodded his hello, not intending to give the woman the time of day.

Karen pointed to a chair for the cop she perceived as Jane's body guard. It was an upright hard affair set near a wall, well away from the camera lights and equipment.

Already present in the building was a seated studio audience of about two hundred getting hot and itchy under the lights. "Make yourself comfortable." She said to Cho.

Reluctantly Cho left Jane's side and settled himself in the chair. He could at least see everything that was happening.

"I didn't agree, actually." Jane reminded Karen in answer to her statement, knowing she already understood that. He looked around at the familiar set-up, already wishing he were someplace else.

The set for Cross-Hairs took up one end of the large building. Cables and other electronic goods snaked across the twenty-five foot ceilings. Hot camera lights illuminated the scene to erase unwanted shadows, and over the interview chairs and small table two microphone booms hung from overhead like brontosaurs. Three currently un-manned studio cameras completed the set.

Karen took his hand in hers and gently squeezed, leading him over to a make-up counter. She whispered to the artist. "Not too much, okay." She said to Jane with one hand rubbing his shoulder ever-so-slightly. "We don't want to hide that handsome face under too many layers, do we?"

Karen left him there and Jane endured the artist's small talk while she smeared her gunk on his skin and his heart hammered in his chest. Breathing calmly was already becoming problematic.

Karen stood in a more private corner and spoke to her producer. A young woman stood nearby, Jerry's go-get-it girl, waiting for instructions. "Don't worry, Jerry, believe me, this will be the best show yet."

"Going to slaughter another poor lamb in front of millions, are you Karen?" Jerry was proud of his prime slot production, but his shows' host much less so.

"I have a few things up my sleeve." Karen reassured him. "And it won't be a slaughter, just a little blood-letting. Believe me, when my viewers get a load of Patrick, you won't be able to keep them off the phone, especially the women."

"Oh." Jerry understood. "Here's one who rejected you, huh." He said slyly. "He wouldn't give you _his,_ so now you're going to give him _yours_."

Karen stared at him for a few seconds, not blinking. "Piss off, Jerry. I have a hit show to host."

Jerry watched her walk away, back to where her latest sacrifice's make-up was being finished up. Jerry said to his young get-it girl. "Poor bastard. I already feel sorry for him."

CBI

Karen escorted Jane to the studio set and had him sit to her right. "Now that camera" She explained, pointing, "will be on your face for almost the whole interview. When the red light is blinking, the camera is active, when it's a steady red, it's not. Now they will only switch to my face during commercials or when I signal to the lead camera man on One." She leaned way over, until she was almost on top of him, and adjusted the tiny microphone clipped to his shirt collar. "Sorry, here, let me get that for you."

Ignoring the woman's bosom hanging in his face, Jane's gaze drifted between the table, the walls to his right, the people milling about off camera but never to Karen or the camera itself.

"Now this is two-part-er and it's going out live, Patrick, so please just relax and answer any questions I or a call-in viewer might have. We have a few minutes, would you like to go over the scheduled breaks? The first is-"

No one had said anything to him about doing two shows. Jane finally did look her way, just a glance but with no eye contact. "Can we just get this over with?" He would do this show, this _one _show and that would be the end of it.

Karen paused, twisting her bottom lip. "Sure. Fine. Hal – you ready?"

Her camera Lead nodded. "Whenever you are, Ms. Cross."

"Call center?" She asked into the air, adjusting her own microphone.

Jerry, off camera and standing in the shadows said "Ready."

"Okay, let's do it people." She said, a camera-ready smile breaking out on her face.

Jane jumped when the shows' canned music boomed out over the high-end sound equipment.

As it faded, he watched as the fellow on Camera One held up five fingers and counted down. "Okay, in five, four..." He mouthed the final three seconds silently then pointed his index finger to Karen.

She looked directly into the camera and into millions of homes. "Hello. Welcome to Cross-Hairs. I'm Karen Cross and this week, we'll be speaking with Patrick Jane, our local California Bureau of Investigation's consultant. Jane works with the Bureau's homicide division here in Sacramento assisting them in tracking down and catching killers. If you recall last week Cross-Hairs made a public appeal to Mister Jane to join us here at the studio and he has graciously agreed."

Karen turned to him. "Welcome to the show, Patrick, we're glad to have you."

Jane did not look at her, merely nodded, his face blank, his eyes everywhere but the camera. "Hi."

Karen cleared her throat. "Uh, sorry, Mister Jane, I guess it's been a while since you've been on television." She pointed a genteel and helpful finger. "The camera's right there for you."

Jane, legs crossed and hands folded in his lap, said. "I will not be looking at the camera, Karen. Coming here wasn't my idea."

Karen paused. It was almost imperceptible but she swiftly recovered, turning to her studio audience. "Patrick is a little camera shy." She turned back to Jane. "Well, we want you to be comfortable here, Patrick, so please just look where you _are_ comfortable. Look at me if you like."

Jane didn't and Karen continued. "We all understand why that camera shyness might have developed, it was while you were on camera, during your very last television appearance, actually your very last _public_ appearance anywhere, that your family was murdered, isn't that right?"

He nodded once. "Yes."

Karen turned back to her audience. "For those of you unfamiliar with Patrick's story, nine years ago while Patrick was making an appearance on Top-Case and speaking with its host Raymond Chance about the serial killer Red John, it was Red John himself who broke into Patrick's home, brutally murdering his wife and young daughter. The story made the headlines for weeks and soon after Patrick disappeared from public life."

She turned to Jane. "But you re-entered your life again, elsewhere, didn't you, Patrick? This time, to hunt down criminals and in particular Red John himself, isn't that right."

"You know it is."

"Care to elaborate on why you chose that path? Did the death of your family render a kind of epiphany? That saving people from criminals was better than rooking them for money as a fake psychic?"

Jane had expected this. He had no illusions to as to why Karen wanted him on the show. She wasn't interested in his story, only the sordid details of how it had nearly destroyed him. Screw her. "I already explained to you that I will not talk about the Red John case."

"Don't you mean you refuse to talk about Red John himself? That is why he murdered your family to begin with, isn't it? Because you went on television, a live broadcast, and spoke about him? Spoke things you knew were lies and that Red John heard these lies and was not pleased with you, making his displeasure known by killing your wife and child?"

Jane stared at the Exit sign on the back wall. "No comment."

Karen ignored his attempt to shut her down. "And now you're hunting Red John, but instead of capturing him you have in fact been _taken_ by him on more than once occasion and even tortured. Is that not also correct?"

"Do you have a question about my hobbies?" He asked. "I collect vintage cars."

Karen heard the music that cued it was time for the first commercial. She turned to the camera and said to her millions of fans. "We'll be right back when Patrick and I will get more into these and other topics. Please stand by."

When the camera was off, Karen covered her tiny microphone with her fist, leaned over to him and whispered. "Are you really going to blow this? Remember whose job is on the line here? Don't try fucking me over, Patrick, because you'll regret it."

Jane smiled to himself. "You disgust me, Karen, and don't think I didn't clue in that you've been flirting with me these last few weeks. You were as vulgar and obvious as a painted whore. Given the choice, I'd sooner sleep with a corpse."

Karen pursed her lips in a perverse smile. "Or with a_ man_ if I am to understand the rumours. I wonder if your wife would have approved."

The commercial was over and the music cued in once more. Karen studied her most stubborn guest for a moment then turned to camera One once more. "Welcome back to Cross-Hairs. We're here with Patrick Jane, the CBI consultant who is with us today to discuss his life since the murder of his family by the serial killer Red John."

Karen said. "We were discussing Red John..."

Jane walked over her words with his own. "_You_ were discussing Red John, _I_ wasn't saying anything."

Karen ignored the interruption. "I have learned in my research that Red John has a particular hatred for liars, Patrick, so if you simply tell the truth to our studio audience, there should be no repercussions from him, wouldn't you agree?" She did not wait for him to respond and continued with "So what happened to you in February, when Red John took you? Or in June when he took you again? What did he do and how has this affected you?"

Gone was her understanding manner and front and center was her vicious attorney/reporter teeth. It was her signature move. "I have the reports right here on the table - shall I read them out for our studio audience and millions of viewers?"She picked up a sheaf of papers Jane had not noticed before. "Or do you want to tell us what happened in your own words?"

Jane was already exhausted by the few minutes spent before the hated cameras and in the presence of the viper-like female. "I thought you wanted to hear about my life?"

"This _is_ your life, Patrick. Red John is your life, hunting him down, getting kidnapped _by_ him. It seems all so bizarre and sordid. It's like you have an obsessive thing for Red John, or perhaps he does for you since he let you go both times, though not without some scarring of one kind or another so I have discovered."

Jane took a long breath of stale studio air. "You want me to give you a run-down on everything he did to me? My short answer is no. Ask me something _specific_ and I'll tell you." Anything to get the hell out of there faster.

Willing to play along Karen said "Okay, fair enough. The coroner's report said that by the time the police were done with their investigation and he arrived on scene you were sitting by your wife's body and holding your _daughter's_ body in your arms. Weren't you worried about destroying evidence?"

A flood of mental and physical memories of that night poured in and Jane took a few seconds to compose the rising tremor in his voice. "My wife and child had just been murdered. I wasn't concerned with anything but that."

"But you had spent some considerable time working with the police, helping them..." Karen did bunny-ear quotes with her fingers in the air "..."solving" murders with your so-called psychic insights - hadn't you? Surely you would have understood the importance of keeping the scene and the bodies intact? Untouched?"

Jane smoothed his pant-leg that did not need smoothing. "The police had finished their work at the scene, and I wanted..." Jane could feel the body of his daughter pressed up against him, even now. Holding her cooling face and limp hands in his as he patted her down, vision blurred with gushing tears, looking for signs of life on her body. Waiting for her to open her eyes and look up at him, waiting for the room to spin about on its axis and the whole scene to just go into reverse, for it to somehow unwind as though it had not visited upon him at all. And for all of the gargantuan pain that had knocked him helplessly to his knees to fly away and leave him no longer crushed by it. As though everything he was seeing in that bedroom was all just a terrible, _horrible_ mistake.

"I just wanted..." Jane had to drop his head into his hand, and rub his eyes to force the memory back into the depths of where it had lain buried for nine years. He cleared his throat and looked at the audience, his eyes still clear. "I wanted to _hold_ my child." These were all things Red John would have guessed at anyway. None of it was a lie. All of it was a knife to his heart.

Karen nodded, playing at sympathy. "I'm sure it must have been terrible. But then they had to arrest you, and confine you because you were disturbing evidence that could have potentially solved the question of Red John's identity once and for all."

Jane picked at the fabric on his knee. "Do you have children Karen?"

"It's not relevant here, Patrick. It is not my actions that we are discussing, it's yours."

"So you think but anyone out there who has children understands, Karen. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you don't."

The music cued and Karen turned to her audience once again. "Stayed tuned, everyone. We'll be right back." Once the camera was off she said to Jane. "Better. Just keep answering like that and we'll get through this."

Jane took a sip of one of two glasses of water that had been provided. "Bitch." He said.

CBI

Lisbon muted the wide computer screen. No one said a word for a minute. Trying to be encouraging about the whole ordeal "He's doing well, she's not breaking him. She won't."

Van Pelt was taking two aspirin and Rigsby looked ready to punch someone. No one was doing any work. "I hope you're right." Van Pelt said. "There's twenty minutes left."

"And this is only the first show." Rigsby reminded them. "Who knows what might happen on the second one?"

Lisbon watched the public service commercial of the girl on her tricycle crossing safely in the crosswalk and the crossing guard smiling into the camera. Jane would get through this. It was just another bump in what had so far proved to be a washboard year. "He'll do fine."

CBI

Jerry sent his Get-It girl over to speak with Jane. "Mister Jane? Would you care for something besides water?"

"I'd like some tea please." He had managed to still the shaking of his hands and the vibration in his stomach but he knew more would be coming from Karen Cross.

Karen left his side to speak to her Producer.

"So?" She asked. "Was I right or was I?"

"The audience already hates you." He said. "That means the TV viewers will, too."

"Who cares? There's only two ways a hosted show lasts: the viewers either hate you or love you. If my goal was to incite blandness, I would never have left the Pittsburgh DA. They hate me – not important because they already _love_ Jane. You watch the ratings, Jerry, and you'll see how right I am."

A voice called out. "Forty seconds Ms. Cross."

Karen returned to her seat, and a girl brought Jane a cup of tea, setting him down before him. He nodded his thanks.

Karen adjusted her skirt and made certain her microphone was still clipped in place, and then smiled into the camera as it focused in on her. "Welcome back to Cross-Hairs. I'm Karen Cross and as you know we're talking with Patrick Jane, a local consultant with Sacramento CBI who has for many years been heavily involved in one way or another with the CBI's case concerning serial killer Red John."

She turned to him. "Patrick, after Red John murdered your family, how much time did you spend in Greenlawn Psychiatric Center?"

Jane cleared his throat. "Four months."

"Treated by Doctor Sophie Miller?"

"It's right there in your notes, Karen."

"And how did it go, her treatment? You came out perfectly normal again? No headaches, no sleeplessness, no lingering anger or issues about control –?"

"What the hell are you getting at? Do you have a real question, Karen? It's not like you to cast bait upon the water."

Karen smirked. "Okay, we'll go straight to the heart – were you aware that Sophie Miller has been implicated in a series of sexual assaults on male patients dating back twelve years?"

Jane, for the first time, looked over at his host. "That's bullshit. Your information is wrong. Sophie Miller saved my life. I'd be dead if not for her."

"Is that right? Are you _sure_? Because there are seven other former patients of hers - besides yourself - who have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct during her tenure there."

Jane looked away, at a loss of what to say. Karen smiled to herself. Finally she had scored one over on the arrogant ass. "Do you have a comment, Mister Jane that you'd like to make? You say you came away from her treatment perfectly well. I find it difficult to believe that, if these allegations are true, that she would not have, shall we say, availed her particular brand of physical therapy upon you as well, as one of her more attractive male patients."

Jane said nothing. The tea in his cup was bitter. The Get-it girl had not removed the tea bag. Sophie Miller had saved his life. He was bent on suicide the day he arrived and she had...

Jane tried to recall specific therapeutic sessions and the things that had occurred there-in.

"Call me Sophie..." Her voice was suddenly in his head, saying that to him. An intimate form of address for a doctor to her patient. Always in her office, she had tea ready for him. They drank it together. He was soothed from his anguish for an hour. She was a good doctor. She helped him.

"Patrick?" Karen urged after allowing him a dramatic ten seconds to think, to appear unsettled and to allow the female viewers of her show to get giddy all over with empathy and longing for the good looking, hurting Patrick Jane.

"Patrick - _did_ Doctor Sophie Miller perform unwanted illicit acts upon you while you were under her care? She has already been charged. There is no need to hide it any longer."

Jane felt like shit. His head hurt and he was astonished to suddenly discover that he had no really clear memories of their sessions together. Nothing concrete to answer the ratings-greedy bitch beside him, to prove she was chewing on the wrong bit of his flesh, that there was no old blood here to spill out all over the set. Nothing had happened there. Nothing could have happened because he was fine after Greenlawn. He had made a full recovery, leaving there well enough to find work at the CBI. His family dead, his doctor...the idea was too much to process...horror upon horror.

"I have no clear memories of Greenlawn." He said finally, knowing it would none-the-less hang him in her eyes. No memories would be interpreted as hidden truths. Rotten things he could neither feel nor remember which Karen would bring down on him like a sword. Next she would imply doctor/patient sexual gropings of his person for which he had no memory and no defence. "I don't remember very much from those days."

"I see." Karen said. It was all she needed to. "How can you be sure of anything, Patrick, relating to the Red John case if you cannot even remember your time spent in a hospital? The place where you went to get well?"

Jane was very tired. Sweet salvation took pity on him in the form of music that signalled the wrap-up of the show. He rubbed his eyes, not even acknowledging the woman beside him as she spewed her goodbyes to the audience and to the camera.

Karen removed her microphone. "That was fabulous stuff, Patrick. Next week, same time okay?"

Jane stood and walked away from the set, tossing the microphone to the floor. Cho joined him and walked him to the car, not needing to ask whether Jane wanted to drive as Jane took his seat on the passenger side. He fastened his seat belt, slumped down in the seat and rested his head in his right hand, attempting to massage his headache away. "I'm hungry." He said to Cho. "Take me somewhere."

CBI

Part 2 soon.


	2. Chapter 2

_**STEADY RED MEANS STOP (Case-file #5) Part 2**_

**Author: **G. Waldo  
><strong>Rating: <strong>Case-fic'. Light humour. **Pairing:** **Jane/Cho** _**WARNING!**_ - _**NC-17**_ _**SMUT**_ _**IN THIS ONE**_. Plus Jane/Lisbon friendship.  
><strong>Characters: <strong>Jane, Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby, Van Pelt, Karen Cross and Red John.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>_Former attorney and now television reporter/host Karen Cross has a new show and imagine who her special interview-e is this week!_**Disclaimer: **Not mine though I wish he was.

CBI

"Her lawyer advised me to go to hell." Cho said to Lisbon.

Seated in her office Lisbon glanced away from Cho for the third time to make sure the door was shut and the blinds closed. "Not so surprising I guess if her client is up on seven allegations of sexual misconduct against her patients."

When Lisbon had first heard the allegations, with a sinking heart she realized that now _everyone_ knew Jane had spent several months in a psychiatric ward, including Bertram, the team, the fellows over in SWAT who regular spread jokes about the "circus freak", and every stranger across the country who by chance had tuned in.

To Cho Lisbon then admitted quietly, feeling guilty that she was breaking her promise to Jane by doing so. "I knew he was in Greenlawn." Karen had already made Jane's secret known far and wide but still it felt wrong to betray a confidence that had bothered Jane so much that to speak it aloud to her, to even his closest friend, had obviously caused him pain. "Jane told me a few years ago. He didn't want anyone to know – he said he was ashamed of it."

"Nothing to be ashamed about." Cho stated, utterly believing it. Everybody had a breaking point, and it was not a sign of inherent weakness or failure when one succumbed. But since hearing Karen Cross mention the allegations on her show Cho had asked himself a hundred times – had Jane also been among those sexually molested by his psychiatrist?

CBI

Dinner was a nine o'clock bite at a local diner.

"Lisbon told me about Greenlawn."

Jane stared at him over his tea cup. The betrayal that struck his eyes landed like a hard mallet. Cho could read the words on his expression as though he had spoken them aloud; Lisbon had spilled not only the fact but the details of his shameful secret to Cho while Karen Cross had spilled it across America.

"Right." Jane said. "No secrets." He dropped the cup into its saucer with a clatter. "Before you ask, I don't remember many specifics about the sessions." Lisbon and Cho, and Karen for that matter, could all go take a flying leap into minding their own business.

Cho chewed on a piece of over-done deep-fried fish and a side of rice. Unwilling to let it drop "I don't care, Jane, that you spent time in a mental institute but don't you think it's a little odd that you can't remember four months of therapy?" It was downright worrisome.

Jane had eaten a third of his chicken and pasta and then abandoned it. "I didn't say I don't remember _any_thing, I said I don't remember everything. There's a big difference. And I was...in a _bad way_ at the time." was Jane's slightly cryptic answer. He picked up his tea again, his next comment sending chills down Cho's spine. "Does it really matter _now_?"

"You mean that you clearly remember _almost nothing_ or that you may have been sexually assaulted? I'd say _both_ matter a hell of a lot."

Jane did not want any of them interfering with a past better left forgotten, however well intentioned. Miller had saved his life at a time he hadn't wanted to live; that was all he cared about. And she had not touched him inappropriately, and certainly not without his consent. He was sure of it. "It's _my_ business, Cho. No one else's. _Mine_."

"They could subpoena you if it goes to trial."

"Then let them –I _don't remember_."

"What _do_ you remember?"

"I remember getting well." Jane threw down some money, intending to leave. "I remember walking _out_ of that place." That's all that _should_ matter. That's all _he_ cared about.

Cho grabbed his arm with just enough grip to keep him there but not so it would feel like force. "Jane if this is going to work, then we need to be honest with each other._ I_ need that, even if you don't. _Just talk_ to me." He urged. "Please?"

Jane settled down again, folding his hands in front of him. "She'd – Soph-...Doctor _Miller_ would come and...just talk to me and after I..." He made loose limbed slicing motions against his left arm with his right hand. "...cut up my forearms, she took on my case personally. That's what she said. She did what all shrinks do – she talked to me, and we drank tea and she t-told me things...helped me...deal with...what happened."

Jane had not said the words: murder, death-of-his-wife, death-of-his-child; _slaughter_ by serial killer. "What things?"

"I don't know - _things_. I don't remember." He was feeling rather anxious and a fresh tea would do nicely. He waved his hand at a waitress and one hurried over to take his request. Cho ordered himself a coffee refill.

Jane tried to ignore him while fishing around in a small wooden table-cubby for sugar. The only thing he kept finding was artificial sweetener which he disliked and tossed back with impatient fingers.

Cho reached in effortlessly and managed to lay his hands on a sugar, sliding it across the table.

Jane thanked him with a frown, tore it open and poured it into his cup.

"What else?" Cho asked again.

"_Nothing_. Can we drop this now?" Jane's expression was pained. He stirred his tea violently, his frustration spilling over. "I've got enough on my mind without this."

Cho could hear the small rise of panic in Jane's voice and decided to stop pushing him. The second part of Karen's show was tomorrow morning and Jane was wound up tight. Little lines of tension had formed around his eyes and he had not slept properly all week. He was a guitar string about to snap in two.

"Okay." Cho said. "Finish your tea and let's go home." He had the perfect de-stressor in mind.

CBI

Cho deliberately left the hall light switched on. That way he could see almost all of Jane's naked body, his touchable skin glowing under its soft light. On his face Jane got as much sun as the rest of them on a day to day basis, which wasn't much since most of the time they all worked from dark to dark but the rest of him, also like the most of them, had little tan.

Not that Cho minded. Like blondes often were, Jane's flesh was so lovely lily-white. Cho ran his hands up and down Jane's naked chest, anticipation building in his pelvis, his cock twitching. Jane's skin felt so smooth and in the half light appeared almost flawless, like alabaster.

Cho caught his lips and kissed him hard for a long time, only coming up for air now and then, wanting to smother Jane with his mouth and explore him with his tongue. Other than too much talking before and after, Jane was a quiet lover and rarely opened his mouth for any reason other than to kiss him or sigh with pleasure.

Tonight Cho was determined to get a moan out of him and that meant going where neither of them had gone before. Without telling Jane, Cho had stopped during the course of his day to purchase lube and condoms. Whether Jane would go for it was as yet undetermined, but he wanted them ready just in case.

Himself Cho knew he had a powerful body because he worked hard to make it so. Jane he knew did some running at the CBI Gym a few times a week and did the weight circuits now and then but when it came to sculpting, Jane was not as goal oriented. But he was however, sufficiently muscled to look good and Cho even appreciated the slight softness to the blonde's stomach – ideal for nibbling. Plus the shapely parts of him that were naturally toned like his powerful legs, his tight ass cheeks and his upper arms and chest.

With a hand on either side of Jane's ribcage Cho raised himself up on his thick arms, taking a moment to admire Jane's body as laid out below him. His own cock was as hard as iron for what he wanted to do, and he wanted it _badly_. Though most of his life accepting that he possessed some small tendencies towards bisexuality, Cho had never-the-less imagined he would find the right lady, eventually get married and start a family as his parents continually hoped and reminded him.

Never had it crossed his mind that he would meet and fall in love with a man and certainly not a man as good looking and intelligent as Jane was, nor one as out-right _compelling_. Jane had stunned them all with his abilities - acquired and practised they soon learned since the tender age of six - and had even impressed with some natural born brilliance on subjects with which he had virtually no experience.

But at the present moment it was Jane's good looks that were keeping Cho's attention. With his still youthful and smooth, nearly hairless skin, his blonde curls (that he desperately tried every day to tame without much success), his aqua-grey eyes, and facial bone structure that looked as though it had been chiselled directly out of a relief on the Acropolis itself, Jane was a nothing less than a heart-stopping bombshell.

Cho kissed him softly then whispered "I want you."

Jane looked up at him, his momentary frown turning to comprehension. "Oh, you mean..."

"I've got everything, and I'll go slowly."

"I guess that's going to make it sort of official – our having sex. I mean, we've had sex but not really _sex_, we-"

"Stop talking." Cho gently admonished, loving the mixed expression of uncertainty and curiosity on Jane's features.

Cho loved messing with the smug confidence that Jane inevitably displayed in nearly every new situation that presented itself. Figuratively dishevelling Jane's sense of control and leaving him vulnerable made him that much more attractive and heightened Cho's desire to fill in those vulnerabilities with parts of himself. With Jane, one soul (and as much as possible one body), moving in and taking over the other's, at least from time to time, was as intensely hot as it got. Thus far fucking Patrick Jane were proving to be the most intimate, most satisfying and most powerfully moving moments of his entire life.

Cho sat up on his heels, clasping his hands around each of Jane's ankles, lifting the blonde's muscled legs, stretching them until they lay almost beside Jane's own shoulders. Jane was flexible and Cho's cock twitched at that new bit of knowledge. It would make for lots more of this particular pleasure. "Stay just like that." He said, leaning in to kiss him. "Don't move. Don't make a sound." He was pleased to see Jane's erection grow as he spoke his instructions and kissed him once more. "That's good, Jane, that's perfect."

Cho fumbled with his fingers to the bed's side table drawer and pulled out the two items he needed. He quickly rolled on the condom, pulling and snapping it in place, smearing on a generous amount of the clear lube. He also warmed a small dab of it between his fingers before spreading it on and around Jane's anus.

In the penis size department Cho knew he was an average North American male and this was one situation where that was an advantage. Too large and anal sex became impossible. Cho had never done this before either but he had read that if the one penetrating rubbed the penis head against the tight sphincter long enough and then entered slowly enough, using at first only the head and then in stages gradually pushing all the way in, there would be no discomfort for the receiver.

Cho kissed Jane once more, and then lined up his cock with the hole, rubbing against it in small circles, pushing against it now and then. A delicious tease for him and, he hoped, for Jane.

Already the sensations were something new and very hot and Cho moaned softly and then, unable to help himself, whispered in his lover's ear "O-o-o-h baby...o-o-h fu-_uck._" Cho performed a series of little invasions before forcing the head of his cock passed the tight ring of muscle, easing himself in. The only sign of discomfort from Jane was a sharp intake of breath and then a long, soft sigh as he exhaled.

Cho kissed him hard on the mouth and began some slow, languid movements, gently pushing in then withdrawing his cock but never all the way. The secret to getting his partner's body to accept him completely, he had also read, was to not pull all the way out again, but to remain inside and move around until he felt his lover's sphincter relax. Only then would he be free to enjoy quicker movements and increase the pleasure for both of them.

Cho wanted Jane to feel how good it could be, too, and pushed in sharply, the head of his penis striking his prostate. Making Jane's hips jump off the bed and a surprised _"Ah-h..."_ escape his lips.

Cho continued to pump and move from side to side, gyrating his hips, virtually hypnotised by the sensation of Jane's hot body holding him tight and every so often squeezing his cock deliciously. Cho kissed him hard when he felt a sudden change in his own body, the need to come building and building as he pumped faster and faster. Jane's own cock was being massaged between their abdomens and Cho felt the pre-cum leaking from it providing a natural lubrication. It meant Jane was close, too.

"Ah-h-h – fuck–fuck-_fuck!"_ Cho was not normally given to cursing of any sort but in this situation, in his bed with his very sexy Jane beneath him and both of them coming hard at the same time the words fit and were righteously fired. Cho wanted to growl out more hot words, slutty words, grinding them out between his teeth into Jane's ear, urgent greedy things about his perfect pink cock and how amazing it was to fuck him and how he wanted to come inside him next time, words that were pure expressions of both mindless lust and utterly helpless love. When having mind blowing sex with your perfect lover, there were no dirty words, and Cho so wanted to say all these things but he was afraid of that small uncertainty that still rested in Jane's eyes whenever he looked at him. Even now as they came down together from a stunning orgasm.

Instead Cho slipped his softening penis from Jane's body and kissed him on the mouth, then rested his head on Jane's right silken shoulder, not saying a thing but lying perfectly still, just listening to him breath.

Cho got up for wash-cloths for each of them, and when they were both clean again, he turned out the hall light and lay back down. Turning on his side to watch his lover go to sleep, Cho draped one arm lazily across Jane's chest, even gently tracing the pattern of the terrible scar with which Red John had marred that flawless skin, until Jane closed his eyes and his breathing evened out.

Cho laid awake and watched Jane sleep while the nameless omnipresent fearful thing stared at them both through the walls and the locks that were only a mere illusion of security. Cho instinctively knew that at some point this love he had for Jane would be put to the test. Black fate just seemed to have it in for Jane and as much as he would like to prevent any more hurt from seeking the blonde out to cut him open, there was already a serial killer moving free through the world who was as obsessed with Jane as was he himself. And that was only the first of his lover's troubles, none of them deserved.

For another hour Cho stared at Jane, his eyes aching into the darkness in fear for his sleeping lover.

CBI

"Welcome to Cross-Hairs. I'm Karen Cross."

Jane listened as Cross spewed out the usual drone to her viewers and counted the minutes until the damn show was done with and he could go home to his, and Lisbon's, jobs - once again secure.

"Last week we were discussing your time spent at Greenlawn Psychiatric hospital and the allegations that been made against Doctor Sophie Miller, the doctor who treated _you_ during your stay..."

Jane had his "no comment" ready on the tip of his tongue when Cross changed tactics slightly.

"The things, Patrick, that concern our Cross-Hairs researchers are _your_ actions during the hours previous to and on the night in question, the night of the murders, and _not_ the Red John case itself. The speculation has been that if not for your actions your family might still be alive, in fact, that you were well aware of the risks to your family and yet you ignored that risk, appearing on Top-Crime as scheduled. You had studied Red John's history of violence toward public figures and knew the specific circumstances surrounding the murder's of others, some not so dissimilar to yours, and yet you went on the air anyway, publically disparaging Red John. Can you shed any light on your reasoning at the time? Why did you ignore common sense and go on television despite the danger? Can you comment, Patrick?"

It was all cleverly worded manipulation of the facts at best and blatant innuendo at worst but there was no law against asking hypothetical questions. Answering them in a way that did not sound defensive or evasive was a different matter. In this particular instance, there was no way to answer.

"No comment, Karen." Jane answered quietly. "I will not happily play into your verbal con."

Karen turned to the audience. "You've heard it said folks - _If not for your actions_...? Well, Patrick Jane's actions on that memorable day and night were to say the least, in our opinion, _questionable_." She asked Jane. "Can you at least tell us what changes you have made in your life and how much of that change is the result of your own culpability, even indirectly, in the death of your wife and daughter?"

Rotten, cold-hearted bitch. "What changes?" Karen could not lay claim to a single soul in her life of studios, cameras and fame. No life-long buddies or close relations with her family. No children. She had never been involved in a relationship with anyone that had gone more than two months, had never been hopelessly and passionately in love. It was the only explanation for spite that brittle. "I have not slept a night through since then." He said tonelessly. "Next question."

Karen held a finger to her ear. "It's time for calls?" She said, nodding. "Jerry tells me we have a caller. On the phone is Richard from Florida. Go ahead Richard, you're on the air."

"_Yeah. Hey – Karen – why in the hell don't you leave the guy alone? Why do you always have to be such a bitch?"_

Karen remained un-phased by his rudeness. "You got a question Richie or did you just call to rant? Because, trust me, I get worse from my dry-cleaners on a daily basis."

"_Yeah. I just wanted to say to Patrick to hang in there and ignore the hag sitting to your left."_

Looking into the camera for the first time, Jane nodded his thanks to the unseen caller.

"Well, the phones are lighting up now, Jerry says, so after this commercial, we'll be right back to hear your answers Patrick. Stay tuned."

Jane used the restroom and gulped down a glass of water. He looked at his watch. Only fourteen more minutes left and this was over. When he re-took his seat, Karen was already there, studiously ignoring him and going over her notes.

"Jerry." She said. "No more callers - I'll be going with this." She instructed, sorting the papers in her hand. Jerry shrugged, spreading his hands as though he was used to her last minute changes, for better or worse.

The music cued and Karen smiled into her beloved camera. "A last minute change, viewers. Since Mister Jane has been so reluctant to come forward with some honest answers regarding his involvement with the Red John case of his own family, instead of taking more callers we're going to be discussing a shocking fact that has come to light regarding the Red John case – specifically that very case involving the murder of Mister Jane's family – and some new DNA evidence previously undisclosed."

Jane stared at her, his heart hammering.

Cross reached over and took Jane's left hand in her own icy fingers. "Patrick, this may be hard for you to hear." She said to him, feigning sympathy and love. She turned back to the camera. "The Medical Examiner of the case, who has since retired had filed a second – note that now - a _second_ report, an addendum to his original results of the autopsies of Angela and Charlotte Jane..."

The cold air of the overhead fans blew stale air down on him and Jane tried to keep breathing, to remain calm while Cross's grating vocals bounced off his flesh, gouging and cutting his skin, drawing unseen blood and causing mute pain.

"It is the report of Charlotte Jane, the daughter that has been recently revealed. Doctor Bernard Vogel submitted his addendum after the murder investigation had already wrapped up and the case files sent to the FBI office in San Francisco. In that addendum Doctor Vogel reported discovering traces of semen on the clothing of the dead girl..."

Karen did not even say her name. His beautiful, perfect and innocent daughter was merely "the child" and "the body" – a corpse – a thing over which to discuss long ago agonies that threatened to swallow him down into its toothy maw. In an instant Jane found his eyes sightless and he was unable to speak. A terrible ache had began in his chest, a tiny and expanding agony that reached outward with chilled, penetrating fingers until he could no longer feel his limbs. It was cold in the studio, an unfeeling empty space of cruel echoes and cooling sweat.

Karen was still talking. "There is speculation that Charlotte Elizabeth Jane, a beautiful girl of age nine when she was murdered, had also been raped by Red John."

Karen finished and looked to her right staring bluntly at her guest for the day. Jane was unmoving, his eyes fixed on the carpet beneath his feet. "Red John..." He began knowing that Karen was waiting for him to speak as was the audience before him and the millions behind the camera lenses.

"Red John would not have..." Jane did not care that they waited. But Red John would be listening, too, and he had to make a defence, as much as his guts were ready to spill from the aching inside, he had to say something not only in answer to the tender innocence of his daughter which he had believed all these years to have been left untouched by the killer, but to Red John himself, so he would not take Cross's words seriously and kill her for it.

Even if her words were correct. Even if Red John had not only cut his child open and let her bleed to death in under a minute, but had lifted her dress, removed her underwear and violated her dead body as well, using her for his perverted pleasure, twisting her tiny legs...

Jane leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees to hold himself upright. Any further forward and he would have toppled over.

But it was now impossible to speak. He placed a hand over his mouth to stifle the ancient keen of grief that threatened to erupt from his throat like a howl. All he could see now were images of his blonde baby girl hacked open in a swath of gore, her legs spread and her childhood taken. Her once happy life drained and her sweetness stolen forever from his eternally empty, shaking daddy's hands.

As much as he wanted to stand and walk away from it all, Jane could not move his legs, so powerful was the paralyzing knowledge of his nine year old murdered daughter's post-mortem rape by the serial killer John. Over and over in his mind Jane re-arranged and re-imagined the words of it, trying to deconstruct them and snuff out their life - sever their steel grip on his mind, trying to make sense of these new and most terrible words to ever enter his ears.

But the words, fully potent, stayed rooted, remaining as they were, bearing down on his soul and heart until he wondered if he was going to expire from them right there on the set. He might drop dead before the cameras of the world yet none of them would have guessed what he was feeling at that moment, or understand the guilt and sorrow a sole survivor carries – a father deprived of his whole reason for coming home, or breathing.

Jane did not know how long he had sat there, not answering Karen and not responding to the killer who was, _who had to be,_ watching, but his next clear thought was that he had given in to the grief. He was crying he realised, choking out the morose strangled noises into his hand, ignoring the camera and the people staring at him in macabre curiosity. Ignoring the heartless woman who had demanded his presence.

Jane wept – sobbed - unable to process the worst thoughts that any parent anywhere could have over his already murdered only child – that his child's helpless body had been violated as well by the flesh and fluids of a monster.

Jane sat there slumped over, not getting up, his chest on its way to caving in from the sorrow, and not speaking, making no sound but the stifled gasps of raw human soul-sewage. Not thinking beyond the next swell of abrasive pain – not even _believing_!

When Cho saw what was happening he walked on set, ignoring the hoarse warning of the director only feet away and took Jane by the arm.

"We're _done_." He said to Karen, not caring if his look of contempt for her made it out into millions of homes across the country. If he could have done so, he would have balled an iron fist and knocked the bitch's teeth out the back of her head.

"Jane." He said in a tender whisper into his lover's grieving ear. "Come on. This is over."

"Patrick?" Karen Cross said. "I realize this must be awful news but you'd be doing yourself and the ongoing investigations into Red John a favour by addressing it – giving us your opinion of why Red John would break his pattern and commit post-mortem rape? Don't you want to know why? I know you do – _Patrick_?"

Jane obeyed Cho like an automaton all the while Cross's voice faded into the background of the sounds of a busy studio and the hushed voices of the audience as they observed the public breakdown of the day's special guest. It was the first time a guest had walked off the set, or had been led off, and it was sad to see a grown man cry. They hated and loved Karen Cross for her exploitive interrogation of the poor, sorrowing father. It was new and exciting. Best show yet.

Cho lead Jane to the men's room where, in between choking sobs, Jane spent the next few minutes throwing up his meagre breakfast of toast and tea into a sparkling toilet bowl.

Cho, knowing any attempt to provide comforting words would only be a gross insult, kept rubbing Jane's back while his body heaved violently, as though it was trying to vomit out the knowledge so it could be flushed away. The floor was dirty and the stall smelled like urine. The half digested food was a pungent addition to the sour mix.

When his stomach was empty and only bile remained Jane sat up, falling from his knees to his backside beside the toilet, his eyes still shedding rivers, his breath hitching. Every few minutes his eyes would squeeze shut and his face would twist in pain again as, Cho reasoned, the images of his daughter's body and its many violations refreshed in his mind, and he would begin sobbing anew.

Not a parent himself Cho could only imagine what it might feel like to be Jane at that moment, perpetually swallowed up by the insupportable pain the loss of a child in those circumstances caused, plus the agony Jane had already carried daily for the last decade. An agony Cho figured that a person never really got over. Perhaps in some small way Jane had found a way to live with it, beyond his long-reaching goals of revenge. But if so, that tenuous agreement of acceptance he and time had made regarding the death of his family was now null and void. Karen had seen to that.

Perhaps it had been a precious truth Jane had clung to over the years, that his daughter, murdered though she may have been, in death had none-the-less remained a child, an innocent, his little girl with the golden curls and the blue eyes of her mother against whom no evil, beyond the taking of her life, had entered and dirtied with its lifeless intent and putrid hands.

But that pathetic image of truth was now no longer possible to maintain. Thanks to Red John and Karen Cross, Jane had no pure dreams left of his little Charlotte to cling to.

Finally, after twenty minutes of sobbing with shoulders shaking so hard it seemed as though he would fly apart, the tears slowed and stopped, and the hitch in his breath calmed. Soon the only thing left to reveal that anything had been amiss were some silent hiccups that sent tiny after-shocks through Jane's torso.

"You wanna' get out of here?" Cho asked quietly. And never look back. Maybe he'd anonymously send Cross a few scorpions through the mail.

Jane nodded. "Sure." His voice sounded like gravel in a bucket.

Cho helped him to his feet and Jane spent a sad moment trying to make his wrinkled and tear-stained shirt a little more presentable, and then they walked out to the car together, Jane putting one foot slowly in front of the other in careful, even steps which was all he could manage, like a caught-man wearing the iron chains of an unseen and particularly cruel slavery.

CBI

Part 3 soon (lots more to come).


	3. Chapter 3

_**STEADY RED MEANS STOP (Case-file #5) Part 3**_

**Author: **G. Waldo  
><strong>Rating: <strong>Case-fic'. Light humour. **Pairing:** **Jane/Cho** Plus Jane/Lisbon friendship.  
><strong>Characters: <strong>Jane, Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby, Van Pelt, Karen Cross and Red John.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>_Former attorney and now television reporter/host Karen Cross has a new show and imagine who her special interview-e is this week!_**Disclaimer: **Not mine though I wish he was.

CBI

Jane could see his colleagues were tip-toeing around him, and speaking in tones more hushed than was habitual – Lisbon in particular. Her voice had lost that sharp edge that conveyed to all in range that she was in charge, instead taking on a touch of saccharine that did not sound like her at all.

Because of his public breakdown Lisbon had adopted the role of a tolerant friend rather than that of an annoyed boss who would normally be thinking up clever new words of reprimand when he arrived late once again. Instead she had smiled as though it was okay because he had been publically crying his eyes out just the day before.

Lisbon and every person in the building had either seen or heard about the Jane-Show but his boss wanted him to be okay and so everything else had to be okay, too. So she had smiled kindly then retreated to her office. It was a face that did not suit her. His tardiness should have garnered him at least one half-humorous bark from the tiny brunette.

But not today.

Jane hated the change. It meant they thought_ he_ had changed. True enough he had broken down on television but that stress had been all cried and showered out of him by late last night. Two pills and a fifth of Scotch and he'd slept like a baby.

As far as he was concerned it was business as usual. "Grace." He asked, appearing at her desk with no warning and knocking her out of her concentration.

Van Pelt, almost jumping from her skin asked "Yes?" doing her best to smile without smiling, a forced, unnatural expression that had to be causing her muscle strain.

Jane sighed. "Do you think you could find a current address for a Doctor Bernard Vogel?"

"The medical examiner?"

Jane nodded and Grace entered the information into the CBI data-base. "Um, nothing here. There are a couple of other places I can try."

"I'd appreciate it." Jane knew she would go to Lisbon immediately the moment his back was turned, but that was to be expected. Grace was a loyal employee - to a fault - and she was a friend. Grace was worried about him.

She came up with one possibility and wrote it down for him. "I guess I don't have to tell you that you_ know_ you should probably stay away from this guy - right?" The gorgeous red-head looked up at him with those big, honest eyes in a silent plea. It bothered her than he had been hurt though she was trying to hide it. Grace hid a lot of things and in that respect she was more like him than anyone. "Even though I know you'll probably ignore that good advice and go anyway?"

"Questions you know the answer to you needn't have asked." Jane placed a chaste but soothing hand on her shoulder and said with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry."

But she was not going to let him dissuade her from protocol so easily. As Jane walked by Cho's desk on his way out she raised her voice so it would be heard just as far as Cho but no farther. "Cho," She said. "Would you please go with Jane?"

Jane turned around to look at her in dismay and she stared back at him defiantly. "It's this or I tell Lisbon right away." She looked at her watch. "Oh look - it's lunch time. I think I'll try that new cafe about two blocks over." Van Pelt said while sliding on a cooler weather jacket. "You've got an _hour_, Jane."

Jane nodded, grateful for her little subterfuge. "Come on." He said to Cho, who was looking at Van Pelt for some clarification on the shotgun duty she had just volunteered him for.

She mouthed the name silently. _"Vogel."_

Following Jane around trying to prevent disasters was becoming routine. Cho sighed and stood up, gathering his coat, gun and badge. "I'll try to keep his law-breaking down to misdemeanours."

CBI

Doctor – retired – Bernard Vogel had them in for coffee. Cho was surprised that Jane refused the tea he would habitually ask for, but there was probably no beverage on the planet capable of blotting out what he had learned the previous morning.

Vogel, a man in his mid-fifties with a healthy shock of salt and pepper hair, had evidently taken an early retirement. "I bowl and travel a bit." He explained, easing himself down into a padded chair. "But the years as an ME did a number on my feet, you see. Walking has become, as they say, a bitch. What can I do for you officers?"

"CBI Agents." Cho reminded him, not bothering to clarify Jane's consultant role.

Though both of Jane's hands were resting on his knees, they were clenched into fists. His tension made the air in the room as thick as butter. Cho knew the blonde was ready to unravel at the seams but the mentalist still managed to wait until the coffee was served before asking Vogel "Why didn't you file your addendum with the FBI? And why wait so long before adding it to your report?"

Vogel looked from one agent, the calm oriental one who actually looked like law-enforcement, to the other, a man whose vested suit more resembled something a motivational speaker might wear. "Um - er - which addendum is that? It doesn't happen often but I did file a few over the years. And I-I thought you were here to discuss the Brown-Morris autopsy?"

Cho asked. "Was that your last job?"

"Um, no, but there was some question as to the cause of death, the investigating detective had concerns about the post-mortem bruising, but I assured him – "

"We're not here to talk about that." Jane interrupted. "We're here to talk about Red John. Nine years ago you conducted an autopsy on a mother and daughter, the girl's name was Charlotte Elizabeth Jane."

"Oh, the Red John killings, yes, a most famous case..." Vogel stared at Jane for a few seconds, a light slowly dawning in his eyes. "But...Jane? But isn't that-? Oh that is _your _na – er - oh, I see. I-I'm, I see, so - you're...you were...the _father_?" His hand shook as he raised his coffee cup and took a drink.

"_Am_ the father." Jane corrected him. "I _am_ her father. And here's the thing – Red John never rapes his victims. Never. Not the females - never the females and _certainly_ not a young girl – in fact not once in thirty-five murders has he ever raped or interfered with any of the bodies of his victims – _not ever_. So how could you have found semen on her clothes - on my _daughter's_ clothes? -You _can't_ have."

Vogel didn't know who to say his next words to. He decided to speak them to the one wearing the gun, the calm-looking fellow. "B-but, I'm sorry, Mister Jane, but I _did_ find semen. It wasn't much, it was smeared..." He chanced a quick look at the father of the dead girl whose eyes were those of a man in shock – who might get sick or faint. "In-into the fabric of her dress, transference after-the-fact perhaps but..."

Jane, the slightest tremor in a hushed voice, asked "Was there any...elsewhere? Did he...on her..._inside_?"

Vogel pressed his lips together against the very uncomfortable subject. Not uncomfortable within his own clinical setting, but in every way so when addressing the father of a dead girl who had once lain stiff and cold on his metal table. "No but..." Vogel was nervous. The father, sitting there with every appearance of calmness, in his eyes never-the-less looked as though he might attack something or someone.

"But _what_?" Jane asked sharply.

"He - the killer..." He cleared his throat and took off his glasses, cleaning them with a corner of his shirt. "I'm sorry, Mister Jane, I really am, but he had washed her you see..._after_. There may have once been traces but I could find no seminal evidence inside her. I am very sorry."

Jane stared at the coffee table, processing what he had heard but could not believe.

"I am truly very sorry, Mister Jane, I-I wish I had something more concrete for you but the killer...the intimate parts of your daughter's body had been _washed_. There was nothing to find."

Jane nodded.

"These cases - sometimes that is the way they go. It is unfortunate." Vogel said, scratching his nose, his eyes looking away. "She was, if I recall, a beautiful girl."

Jane stared at Vogel. "You're lying." Jane said. "You just told me a lie."

Now the man in the vest did sound and look angry and Vogel looked to the calm one for help. "I have told you everything, now I think - I think it's time for you to go." He stood up and went to the door of his apartment, opening it for them. "Please, Mister Cho. I don't know why you're man here thinks I'm lying but I have answered your questions and this is too much now, please just go."

Jane was not to be put out prematurely. "What are you hiding Vogel? Trust me, I know liars and I _know_ you're lying about something."

Vogel shook his head, frustrated and a little frightened of the angry-eyed CBI man. "Go, gentlemen or I will call the police."

"I am the police." Cho said but he took Jane's arm and pushed him toward the door. "Thank you, doctor."

Once in the hall, Jane shook off Cho's strong armed grip. "What the hell are you doing? He's lying."

"Why?" Cho challenged. "Because you say so? You're going to need a little thing called proof, Jane."

Jane dismissed such conventional ideas. "Simple, we go back in and I hypnotise him."

"I doubt he'd sit for you." Cho walked away with his keys in his hand, pleased that Jane was following him, the blonde conceding, at least for now, that Vogel was probably not going to cooperate.

CBI

Once in the SUV and driving back toward CBI, Jane's phone rang. He looked at the call display. "Uh oh.' He said, "Lisbon."

"Just answer it."

"Hi Lisbon." Jane said.

"Where are you two? And don't say you're at lunch. Van Pelt is a lousy liar."

"We're having violent sex in the car." Jane said, looking to Cho to see if it got a rise out of his stoic friend and lover.

Cho just rolled his eyes.

Ignoring Jane's attempt at levity - "Well, get back here now." Lisbon barked at him. "We have a situation." She hung up.

Jane put his phone away. "She sounds ominous. No quickie in the back seat I guess."

CBI

Lisbon met them in the hallway outside her office.

Jane said "Now what was so important that Cho and I had to put our clothes back o-?"

"-Shut up." Lisbon said. "Come on."

She led them to her office. Inside Karen Cross sat a few feet away from the man Jane recognised as Jerry, the producer of Cross-Hairs.

Lisbon left for a moment and then returned with Van Pelt carrying her lap-top. Rigsby was the last to enter. When everyone was present and accounted for "Van Pelt." Lisbon said "Play it."

While Van Pelt took a few seconds to find the file Lisbon explained. "For any of you who don't know, this is Mister Jerry Schenn. He received a call approximately one hour ago at the studio. The caller claims to be Red John."

Jerry said to Lisbon, pathetic hope in his words. "Maybe it isn't Red John? Maybe it's a crank caller? We get them all the time, that's why both sides of every call that comes in to the studio are automatically recorded."

Jane, his suspicions of Vogel momentarily forgotten, leaned his back against the wall and Cho took up a seat nearest the door. "I'll know." Jane said, looking at the distressed Jerry, understanding the man's anguish all too well. "If it's Red John, I'll know."

Van Pelt said. "Okay, here we go."

When the voice spoke Jane could swear it physically crawled over his skin, leaving a trail of putrescence in its wake.

"_Jerry. This is Red John. I have your lovely Allison. There's something I want you to do for me, Jerry, I want you to bring Patrick back on the show. Karen has said some vile things about me, Jerry, and I feel I should answer her and all her curious viewers. Do this and Allison will live. Do not and I will cut her open like I did Angela, the little Charlotte and so many others."_

In the room, Jerry Schenn put his head in his hands as he listened to the recorded conversation for the tenth time.

"_Who the hell is this? Martin – if this is some kind of sick joke..."_

"_This is no joke, Jerry. Just check with Allison's school and you'll see."_

"_What do you want?"_

"_I've already explained it, Jerry. Bring Patrick back on the show tomorrow or your pretty daughter dies. It's very simple really."_

"_Y-yes, um, look, who-ever you are, please don't hurt my daughter. She's a good gi-"_

"_Begging is undignified, Jerry. Patrick never begged, even when I burned my art into his smooth skin. He was very brave. Just do as I say, Jerry, and Allison will be unharmed. We will speak again on Cross-Hairs tomorrow at the usual time. Do not disappoint me, Jerry, or little Allison will die in a pool of her own blood."_

"_Y—yes, we will, I mean I will. Can I speak to her? I want to speak to her."_

"_Tomorrow, Jerry. Now remember to call Patrick and invite him along. I know he wouldn't want to miss it."_

The call ended and Jane swallowed, the hated voice, every nuance and pitch, the rise and fall of the backdrop nasal, all of it...there was no mistake. With Red John's voice came unbidden the sour stench of Red John's breath and the loathsome feel of the killer's invasive hands going places they had no right to go. Jane stepped away from the wall and walked to the other side of the room, needing to get away from the memories that had suddenly become physical, making his skin crawl.

"It's him." Jane said. "It's Red John."

CBI

Karen Cross had a different opinion about what they should do with the threats. "This is my show and I will not let some freak dictate what to do with it." She insisted, looking at her producer with more pity than sympathy. "Jerry, we have no idea if he really has Allison-"

Jane snorted. "He has her, Karen. Even a two-bit investigator like you ought to recognise how serious he is."

For the moment Karen ignored Jane. "If he even _has_ Allison...look Jerry, I don't mean to be cruel, but _if _he has her, he might kill her anyway no matter what we do." She looked to Lisbon and the other members of law enforcement in the room to back up her theory. "Am I right? Since when does Red John kidnap people and let them go?"

"Since me." Jane reminded her while flashing a look at Lisbon. "Twice."

"Well, I think –" Cross began.

Jerry raised his face from his hands. "Nobody _cares _what you think, Karen." He said. Large unshed tears nestled in his eyes. "What you're going to do, Karen, is put Mister Jane back on your show tomorrow. We're going to do whatever it is that freak wants. I will not have my daughter killed by a fucking psycho because of you, you camera-humping bitch."

"Hey." Lisbon said. "Calm down Mister Schenn, we'll do whatever is necessary to save your daughter."

His eyes disbelieved. "How? You don't even know where she is."

"Where was she _supposed_ to be?" Jane asked.

"At school, Sac' Central high. After the call came in, I phoned the school - she never showed." Jerry looked over at Jane, the man everyone insisted knew all about the serial killer. "Do you think he'll really kill her, I mean even if we put you on the show?"

Jane tilted his head a little back and forth, thinking. "He's broken his pattern lately, um, the most I can give you is a maybe but if you want me to be completely honest - no. I think he'll kill her anyway."

"See?" Karen said.

"I wasn't agreeing with you, Karen." Jane was quick to point out. "I'll go on the damn show, all the good it's likely to do."

Lisbon stood and walked to her door, touching Jane's arm on her way by. "Can I talk to you in the hall?"

"Uh, weird time for it but okay, sure." Jane let her lead him from the room.

Lisbon closed the door behind her. "Why are you stomping all over that man's hope? You for one should understand what's he's going through."

"Sure I do but you want me to lie? Red John's a killer."

"A girl's life is at stake."

"Someone's life somewhere is always at stake, that's the nature of the planet."

"But you can do something about this one."

"Yes, Lisbon, I can try, but her life is in Red John's hands. Just because he let me go doesn't mean he'll let the girl go. He'd love nothing better than to torture her father with hope and then kill her for dessert."

Lisbon stared at him like he was someone else, and not the man she had known and worked with for four years. "Are you saying you refuse to go on the show?"

"No, I'm saying I don't care about Jerry or his daughter and even less about Karen." Jane answered plainly. "But I will go on the show because it gives us a chance to catch Red John. The only way Red John can talk to us is via the phone calls he'll have to make which means we might be able to trace where they're coming from. I assume your tech-heads will take care of that?"

"Yes." Lisbon said, searching his eyes to see if she could spot anything he might be hiding, suspecting Jane's breakdown on live television must have affected him more than he let on. She had heard him be callous before though usually it was an attitude he reserved for killers, thieves, liars, cheating wives and husbands – never an innocent man and his even more innocent daughter. "Are you all right? I mean on the Cross show – "

"I'm_ fine_." He assured her before she could dig any deeper. "Let the record show I am doing this to catch Red John and to keep Cho, and_ you_ of course, happy. You both regard me too highly I might add."

Lisbon was quick to counter Jane's attempt at what she saw as self depreciation. "No,_ I_ don't think so. You're a good man, Jane. I believed that when you were hired and I still do – even if you don't."

CBI

This time Lisbon Cho and Jane were on hand to personally watch the show from inside the studio. In a room nearby that had been vacated for the necessary equipment, the tech's had set up to trace whatever calls came in from Red John, assuming he actually followed through, with live feeds nestled inside Lisbon and Cho's ears.

"Are we ready?" Lisbon asked through the tiny microphone at her collar. When she got an affirmative from the tech room she nodded to Cho. "Here we go."

Jane was already seated back in the spot light with a nervous Karen at his side. She had made notes, the contents of which Jane could only guess at since this show's entire agenda was in Red John's hands and as far as they knew he was ad-libbing the whole thing.

Karen Cross muttered. "You think the ratings on my last show were something to see? _This_ will take me multi-national."

Jane stared at the camera this time, willing the damn thing to begin. "Be careful what you ask for." He said to her.

The music cued and Karen Cross looked into the camera. Gone was her pasted smile though her undercurrent of smug self-assuredness was still present. "This is Karen Cross – Welcome to Cross-Hairs. Today we have back our special guest, Patrick Jane, and another very special guest – one that will surely make television history – on Cross-Hairs. Red John will be joining us.

"For those of you who don't know Red John is a serial killer – you heard me right - a _serial killer_ who has been active for close to fifteen years and is _**still at large**_. In case you are tuning in for the first time, Red John was also the man who nine years ago murdered Patrick Jane's family. Patrick Jane is a consultant who, along with his colleagues at the California Bureau of Investigation, has been hunting Red John ever since – though so far unsuccessfully."

Karen turned to Jane. "While we're waiting for Red John to call, Patrick, why don't you bring us up-to-date on the Red John case as it stands? Now I _know_ in the past you have made a point not to talk about Red John on television and considering what happened to your family, that is understandable, but Red John himself has asked you to be here. It seems clear that he _wants_ you to talk about him. Any thoughts on why he has called you here today?"

"My belief is he wants to speak to you, Karen." He had a hunch. Karen had brought up the rape thing and Red John was probably displeased about that, though Jane doubted if Red John would let him off the hook today either.

"Me? Why me? I said nothing but the truth about Red John; he has no reason to attack me in any way."

"It's dangerous to think you know what's in his mind. I've been studying him for years and even I don't always know why he does the things he does."

"You mean like your abduction? Tell us what happened."

It was dangerous territory but the truth is the only thing Red John would respect, if a serial killer can respect anything. "He threatened to kill my colleague – he kidnapped Teresa Lisbon, my boss, and used her to get to me. So I went, hoping it would save her life."

"And what happened?"

"He kept his word. He didn't kill her."

"Odd, though, that you're still alive after all these years. Can you speculate on why he did not kill you instead of your family?"

"He killed my family to punish me. Killing me wouldn't have driven his point home because the dead don't feel sorry." This next bit was mostly unknown territory. "As for why he has not killed me _since_ then I-I'm not sure. He said –"

"Yes?" Karen asked; her voice of sympathy was silicone smooth, total artifice.

"He said he loves me. Now I am assuming he means loves to play mind games because it is my belief that there is no love in him. And why he would claim to love someone he has been stalking and hurting for years I don't know but those were the words he used. Make of them what you will."

"Have you ever seen Red John?"

"Yes. I saw him once although that was several months ago. By now I'm sure he's changed his hair colour and possibly even had some surgery. He's not a stupid man and by no means an ineffectual adversary in any way. Red John has eluded the FBI, the CBI and every law-enforcement agency across the western US for fifteen years. That tells me that he's smarter than we are."

Jane took a deep breath. The line of questioning was making him ill with worry. He hoped that while not straying from the truth and his personal perceptions on the matter, that he had bolstered Red John's ego enough to prevent any knee-jerk reactions from the killer – like slaughtering Allison Schenn for instance.

"What was his reason for scarring you?"

"I'm not certain but maybe to prove to me that despite our efforts to catch him, he was still free to do as he liked. And perhaps to remind me that...maybe...I'm not sure but maybe he thinks of me as his...property." The last three syllables were spit from his mouth like three tiny bullets striking the air. It was essentially what Red John believed – he had said as much when his killer arms had drawn Jane into his killer's embrace and buried his killer's mouth in his hair.

Jane felt the man's touch even now and it turned his stomach over. He felt faint. This was not working. Why had he agreed to this?

"Do you think he'll call?" Karen asked.

Jane swallowed the bile in his throat. "I don't know."

Even Karen's face looked alarmed when Jane suddenly turned white and sat forward.

"I need a break please." He whispered. "I'm going to be sick."

Karen signalled for the assistant producer to go to commercial. Jane walked swiftly off the set and only made it to the hallway outside the men's room before he doubled over. He didn't vomit because there was nothing in his stomach, but he felt dizzy with nausea and stood there, bent double and gasping for air until he felt a hand on his back.

It was Lisbon. "Hey. You okay?"

Jane nodded, though his stomach was still churning up bile.

"You were right." She said. "And this was a bad idea. Red John hasn't called anyway. Looks as though he's backed out."

Despite himself, Jane shook his head emphatically. "He'll call. He'll call, Teresa. There's no way he would have set this in motion and not follow through."

Lisbon wanted to ask him things, so many things that she had no right to. About Jane's time spent with Red John, particularly during his second abduction, where Jane had come home bloody and dazed. Jane had said little in the hospital or afterward and the doctors has advised her not to push him. A man with a mental breakdown in his past can all too easily go there again.

What might he have said to the company shrink, she wondered? What does one say about the killer who ruins your life and then claims to love you? Where do you go with that afterward?

She rubbed his back, hoping it might ease his nausea. "Are you _sure_ you can do this?"

Jane straightened up. He was bleach-white but at least he wasn't green. "If we want to save that girl's life, I don't see that we have a choice." Jane looked down at his boss. She was worried about him and he was grateful for that. "I didn't mean what I said before. I just..." He looked around at the hated venue. "_Don't_ want to be here." Here before cameras and people, his inner most sufferings naked to millions of strangers, his past being publically sifted over and over, and all of it taking him apart bit by bit.

"I know." The music cued. "Come on; let's get this insanity over with."

Jane returned to his spot beside Karen who in the interim had located her humanity enough to order him a cup of stomach-settling ginger tea. Jane drank down half of it almost at once.

"Better?" She asked, not realising that the camera was rolling. When she did, she turned to it and cleared her throat. "If you're just tuning in, we're still waiting for Red John's call, the serial killer who told us he would be phoning into the show today to speak to Patrick Jane. Patrick Jan-"

Off-camera her assistant producer said into his microphone linked directly to Karen's ear "We have a call."

Karen stopped mid-sentence and looked at Jane. "We have a call."

Jane swallowed, trying to sit still. For as long as he had hunted this man suddenly he found himself not wanting to speak to him. Because here Red John was in control, once again leaving Jane with no way to prepare his defence and no way to see his enemy to read the lies on his face. This could all end well or very, very badly, much of it no doubt depending on how he himself responded.

"_I'm here, Karen. Hello Patrick. Very nice to see you again. I'm sorry that your stomach is upset – you always did have a bit of a delicate constitution. Perhaps you should finish your tea?"_

At the voice a hundred painful images flooded into Jane's mind, starting with his dead daughter and dead wife and moving forward to Greenlawn and Sophie Miller and her soothing voice and possible interfering hands that he could not remember, and seeing Lisbon tied up, helpless to do anything about it. Feeling the demon burn of Red John's brand on his untouched flesh, and the after-burn of having been raped, a reality that he knew Lisbon believed he had no knowledge of. Difficult to misinterpret the pain that sort of specific physical violation leaves behind. And then the fire at Grace's apartment that might have killed her and the dead accusing eyes of the cleaning lady in his hotel room, and now here he was sitting once more where he swore he'd never be again. He was tired of the fight. He was tired of Red John and his games. He was so very _tired_ of it all.

Jane, hating that he should have to drink just to keep the murderous son-of-a-bitch happy, took up his cup and swallowed the remainder. It was cold.

"_Karen."_ Red John said. _"I know you think I am here to speak to Patrick but I am really calling to talk to both of you."_

Karen Cross's heart rate doubled at the mention of her name. Her hands were clasped in her lap and steeled with tension. Nothing like hearing your own name fall from a killer's lips as though he knew you personally to inject some healthy fear into your soul.

"Yes?" She said, years of experience keeping her voice cool. "What did you want to ask me?"

_They exploded instantly, his words striking hard on everyone's eardrums with no warning or hint as to their nature. "I want to know why you are **whoring** after my Patrick."_

Karen Cross did a bit of a double-take. Possibly a first. "What? I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't understa-"

Red John's voice boomed out across TV land cutting off her denial._ "DON'T __**LIE**__ TO ME! You were seen, you roaming__** slut**__."_

Jane watched Karen Cross swallow hard, for once at a loss for words. No, she would not have guessed this. She would not have had ready a smarmy answer for this sort of question and from this sort of guest.

"I-I'm not sure what you want me to say. I don't know how to respond to that."

"_By telling me the truth I already know. However I want to hear you say it. You like Patrick, don't you?"_

Jane could see the out-and-out lie she was going to say crushed beneath her mounting uncertainty. Fear had its foothold.

"I, yes, well...we are colleagues, in a way. Our relationship is one of mutual respect, we –"

"_LYING BITCH!" _Red John then the whole studio and the audience of millions heard another scream. _"Do you hear that, Karen? That is the sound of fear. Allison has a very pretty throat and I will cut her head off and mail it to you in a box if you lie to me even one more time. I dare you, Karen. I double-dare you."_

Karen's hand flew to her mouth. "No, please don't. I'll tell you the truth. P-please don't hurt her."

"_Then SAY it."_ Red John instructed.

Jane took a deep breath. He had a few more years with Red John in his life than poor Karen and when it came to torture the killer was methodical. No heart-stone unturned. No serenity left intact.

In another room, Jerry Schenn wept in his hands as Lisbon's tech's desperately tried to trace where the call was coming from. Outside Cho and Rigsby stood by in a vehicle prepared to follow the trace back to an address.

On the stage, Karen Cross tried to gather her wits. "Um, yes, I like Patrick, _liked_ him. More than just as a colleague."

"_Yes, more..."_ Red John said his tone decorated with a leer. _"Much more. You are infatuated with him, aren't you?"_

Jane could tell Karen was contemplating the crossroads with which Red John was confronting her. Tell the truth and look like a slut in front of all her fans or tell a lie and risk being the one who in all but fact slits an innocent girl's throat?

"Yes. I find him attractive. So what?"

"_How long have you been having fantasies about Patrick, Karen? How many secret scenarios have you indulged that got you dripping deep in your womanhood? And remember I will know if you are lying to me. I watch Patrick all the time you see."_

Karen stole a glance to her right where Jane was rubbing the pain from between his eyes, perhaps a thought sparking in her own mind that being in the hot seat was a decidedly uncomfortable chair; one she had not experienced before today.

She mouthed something to him and Jane thought it might have been _I'm sorry_. Little good it did now.

Karen screwed up her courage. "Patrick is an attractive man. Many women, probably even the ones he works with, I imagine have had such thoughts. I don't see why it matters."

"_But not many women like you, Karen. Patrick rejected you, didn't he, several times. His taste in lovers run to a more sophisticated and cultural level than the likes of you. Why I bet even now you're angry with him for sending you on your way without so much as a peck on the cheek. Yes, Patrick said no and no and no again to your unspoken lusts of squatting on him and squeezing his cock to your slut's delight. Am I right, Karen? Remember a girl's life hangs in the balance. Am I right?"_

Karen drew herself up."I was interested, yes."

"_Sexually. You wanted him sexually. You wanted to put your dirty lawyer hands on him. Why just the thought of those beautiful tragic eyes looking back at you in carnal exchanges made you keep going back again and again, trying to win him over."_

Karen ran shaking fingers through her hair. "Uh – yes, I suppose so."

"_But Patrick said no each and every time because he despises you and loathes everything you stand for."_

"What the hell does it matter?" She asked boldly. "I found him attractive – like I said. So what?"

"_You wanted to fuck him. Say it, Karen. Admit that you wanted to fuck him relentlessly. Say it in front of all of your admiring viewers!"_

Even bolder - "Can we move on now?" She suggested.

"_SAY IT SLUT OR THE GIRL DIES!"_ In the background another scream filled the speakers.

Karen jumped out of her skin. "No, please don't hurt her." Karen pleaded. "She hasn't done anything. This-this is _insane_."

Jane could have told her that from the beginning. They were dealing with a mad man after all.

Karen asked the crazy man on the other end of the line. "What is the point of trying to humiliate me?"

"_Because you spoke lies about me, Karen, and if there is one thing I cannot tolerate, it is a liar. Many men have been harmed by the lies people tell."_

"Many? But you're talking about Charlotte Jane? I told the truth as I knew it; as the evidence revealed itself."

"_But lies never-the-less. Now say it..."_

Karen swallowed, her hand going to her throat. It was shaking. "_Yes_, I wanted to fuck him. Now why does it matter?"

Red John's voice was suddenly softer, gentler. _"I don't like it when someone hurts Patrick. It is...disquieting."_

"You mean someone besides _you_. It seems obvious to me that you've hurt him more than anyone."

"_In a coming day he will understand. Thank you, Karen, for being so honest with your viewers."_

Karen was pale and shaky but it appeared that her trial was over.

Jane looked into the camera where, from somewhere he was sure, Red John looked back. "I'd like to ask something of you."

Almost sweetness itself, _"Yes Patrick?"_

It was abhorrent to be asking Red John for a favour. But Jane kept the image of the girl Allison Schenn in his mind to force it passed his lips. "I'd like an hour break to check into the allegations Karen made regarding ...my daughter and what Vogel said you did to h-her."

"_That would please me, Patrick. I will return in one hour. Until then..." _

When the lights went off, for a moment not a sound could be heard anywhere in the studio floor. Then Jane stood up and walked off the set, the soles of his shoes the only rhythm other than Karen's racing heart.

He entered the room where the technicians were set up. "Tell me you found something." He said to Lisbon. "Tell me this wasn't all for nothing."

"I sent Cho and Rigsby out to a location. They found an active cell-phone lying out in the open. The call was being routed there from a computer, and then sent here. They're trying to nail down the computer or at least the server."

"He'll use a different computer and cell phone the next time he calls." Jane pointed out.

Lisbon nodded. "I know." As Jane had often reminded them over the years, Red John was not stupid. "But there is nothing else to try."

"I need a ride to Vogel's apartment."

Lisbon nodded, removing her ear phone and leaving the technical side of things in the hands of the experts. "I'll drive."

CBI

Vogel did not welcome him back but with one flash of Lisbon's badge he stepped aside.

Jane did not wait for any pleasantries. "I know you lied and you're going to tell me."

Vogel, his nose shining, shook his head. "I don't know what lies you're talking about, Mister Jane." His breath smelled like bourbon.

But Vogel led them to his living room where his computer screen glowed. Vogel swiftly switched it off. Jane caught a flash of a photo of a young girl. Daughter? Vogel had no kids.

Jane sat down opposite Vogel and leaned forward, sitting on the very edge of the couch. "Mister Vogel I am going to appeal to your sense of honour."

Lisbon looked sharply at Jane. He was speaking in a voice that she had heard before. Once before, at her own apartment. "Jane..." It was a warning.

Jane turned to her and whispered fiercely. "You want that girl to die? Then let me do what I need to."

Jane turned back to a confused Vogel and continued. "Mister Vogel, I don't know if you've heard about me but I am trained in hypnosis. Now I assure you I am _not_ going to try and hypnotise you, because you are far too tense for that and people cannot be hypnotised against their will. You are tense, aren't you, Doctor Vogel? I can see in your shoulders. That must be very painful."

Vogel rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand. "Well, now that you mention it, I have been stiff lately. It could be tension I suppose."

Jane looked steadily into Vogel's eyes, his own lids never blinking once. Lisbon had been surprised the first time she'd seen Jane hypnotise someone, his eyes had never closed or blinked the entire time. Jane's explanation had been simple. Blinking was distracting.

"Yes, I can see the tension, Doctor. The least I can do is help you with that, and then we'll leave. In fact we'll both leave you as soon as I've helped you with your tension. How does that sound? Now concentrate on my voice. It's all in the way you approach it. The tension is moving, Doctor Vogel, it's beginning to leave you. Soon, you will be free of it. The pain is shifting its hold on your muscles and sinews now. It's like water, seeping out and trickling down. The pain is moving faster now, it's no longer in your shoulders but is flowing down your arms, cascading down your arms to your feet like a waterfall, soothing and cool and wonderful on your skin, making it impossible for you to feel anything but relaxation and rest. The pain is going...going...going...the pain is gone now. You feel relaxed and wonderful. Like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders."

Vogel's eyes had closed and he was sitting very still. "Yes." He said, surprised. "Yes, I feel much better. I'm glad that Mister Jane has left."

"Yes, we are all glad he is gone. Doctor Vogel. I need to ask you something."

Vogel shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Whose semen was on Charlotte Jane's clothing? We both know it wasn't Red John's. Whose was it?"

"Charlotte was so beautiful." Vogel said with a sigh.

"Yes." Jane agreed. "Yes, but we need to talk about the semen you found on her dress. Whose semen was it? Don't worry, Jane's not here to listen to us."

Vogel muttered, his head swaying a little, as though he was looking at something behind closed eyes. "Lying there so small, so sweet, so pretty, so terribly, tragically _vulnerable_..."

Jane stared at Vogel, his face in shock with the dawning of the truth. Lisbon closed her eyes, preparing herself. "Oh my god..." She whispered.

But Jane was nothing if not the best at what he did and he managed to not clasp his hands around the old man's throat while he asked the next question in the same calm, soothing voice as before. Only Lisbon saw the fury in the gray-green eyes that would be erupting soon enough. "Was it your semen, Doctor? You can be honest, we're all friends here, and remember - no one will _ever_ find out."

"She was so sexy, lying there in her own blood with that torn dress. I can't help it if they bring me pretty ones. Poor little innocent baby girl..." He said, his voice lower, his face flushed, his countenance changed. He was aroused.

Jane knew and so did Lisbon. The day was turning into a horror story. "It was your semen, wasn't it Doctor Vogel?" Jane asked again, his voice just starting to break free from the hypnosis-required strict composure in which he had confined it. "It was _yours_?"

"Oh, yes, but I washed her afterward you know, and flushed her out, except I got some on her dress by accident. Couldn't get the stain out...it was clumsy of me. But she was just so pretty..."

Jane tapped Vogel's boney knee twice and Vogel's head suddenly dropped to his chest, and then he snapped awake and stared across the short space of carpet between them. "I feel much better, Mister Jane, thank you. Um – er..." A puzzled Vogel looked back and forth between Jane and Lisbon. "...weren't you leaving?"

"Yes, old man." Jane said, "We're leaving."

Before Jane could twitch a muscle to raise a hand to the stomach-turning necrophilia-tic pedophile sitting across from him, Lisbon grabbed his arm and whispered into his outraged ear. "Later, Jane, _later_ we can address this but we_ have_ to get back. We're out of time, we have to go _now_."

Jane said nothing as Lisbon led him from the apartment. On the short walk to the car Lisbon underlined it for him. "I know you want to go back in there and bash his skull in and I'm with you on that but you're going to have to wait. Allison Schenn's life - just keep_ that_ in your head for now. Okay? Jane? Are you listening to me?"

Jane got in, slamming the car door so hard Lisbon thought the rivets were going to pop. "_Yes_. Just drive."

CBI

Part 4 soon


	4. Chapter 4

_**STEADY RED MEANS STOP (Case-file #5) Part 4**_

**Author: **G. Waldo  
><strong>Rating: <strong>Case-fic'. Light humour. **Pairing:** **Jane/Cho** _**No smut.**_ Plus Jane/Lisbon friendship.  
><strong>Characters: <strong>Jane, Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby, Van Pelt, Karen Cross and Red John.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>_Former attorney and now television reporter/host Karen Cross has a new show and imagine who her special interview-e is this week!_**Disclaimer: **Not mine though I wish he was.

CBI

"We'll get a comparison made. We'll get a sample of Vogel's DNA." Lisbon explained as she drove, her foot almost to the floor, the car lights flashing that told people to get out of the way. She was making all sorts of plans to bring the old bastard to justice. "I mean who knows how many autopsies he contaminated? There could be dozens. We have Red John's DNA on file now and it'll be a simple matter to clear Red John – I can't _believe_ I'm saying those words in relation to him but – one son-of-a-bitch at a time. Vogel will pay, Jane."

Lisbon looked over at him, worried about his stony silence. "I hope you believe that, Jane. He won't get away with it, doesn't matter if the Brown-Morris case is almost twenty years old..."

Jane nodded, wishing she would just be quiet and get them back to the studio, preferably in one piece. With every intelligent plan Lisbon laid out, he nodded again. He didn't feel capable of speaking his mind without screaming and beating his fists against the windshield too. And there was Allison Schenn to think about. There was a life to save.

Jane found his voice long enough to say "You might want Van Pelt to look into the Brown-Morris murder. I'm betting Doctor Sick-Prick back there did some unspeakable things to his corpse and the investigating detective has had his suspicions for a very long time."

Lisbon looked to her left. Jane was talking again and that was a relief, his voice once more almost Jane-normal. But while he was speaking cold, hard tears were running down from his eyes. He made no other sound. It was such an unsettling visual Lisbon could find no words of comfort to offer. "We will. Don't worry, Jane. We'll look into everything."

He nodded, wiping away the useless tears angrily. They brought no solution or ease. "Charlotte never liked that dress."

CBI

Karen was consulting with her assistant producer. Jerry Schenn was in no shape to help with the show having secluded himself in with the technicians, waiting desperately for a lead that would take the agents in charge to his daughter's location.

Lisbon watched Jane standing off on his own with his hands in his pockets, pacing, and waiting for his cue to go back on the air. There were only moments left of the hour Red John had designated, and the studio chiefs were hastily re-arranging other broadcasts to accommodate the elusive killer's time-slot.

Word had spread on the internet about that morning's first broadcast and the serial killer who was in charge of a locally aired popular show, swelling the viewer numbers to eight figures. Cross-Hairs if nothing else was making history just as Karen predicted it would.

"Two minutes people." Karen said her self control and sense of command back in full power. "Jane?" She called to him and Jane walked to the set where she was already seated.

She said to him quietly, "I lied about my interest in you."

Jane did not care to hear her false confessions. He had felt her hands on him whenever the opportunity had presented itself and his nerve endings had understood the significance. Usually when your skin crawls, there is a reason. But he couldn't damn her for trying to save face. "Doesn't matter, does it?"

Karen adjusted her microphone. "No, it doesn't."

But Jane also knew it was his turn when Red John called back. "Don't say anything unless he asks you a question." Even a viper needs to be brought in out of the heat sometimes.

Karen didn't say anything but Jane was satisfied she was not interested in having Red John peer into her soul again. It was bad for her image.

"We have a call." The assistant producer told her over her ear mic'.

Karen did not introduce the show this time other than to say "We're back and we believe Red John the serial killer is calling us now - hello, Red John, we're here."

"_Thank you being on time." Red John answered. "What did you learn Patrick? Did the disgusting old boy really do it?"_

_Jane nodded. "Yes. He admitted it to me under hypnosis."_

"_Useful tool that hypnosis. I imagine you'd like to do some very nasty things to that old pedophile, wouldn't you?"_

What the hell. "I'd like to kill him, yes."

"_Masturbating over your dead daughter's body...one insult on top of another that is." _Red John said._ "And what about the Brown-Morris murder?"_

Jane thought he understood. Even killers have their codes and even some, though fewer, their consciences. "Who-ever killed him was not also guilty of interfering with his corpse – that's not proven yet..."

"_No, but I'm sure it will be."_

Jane needed to know. "I am curious. What is your interest in that case?"

Red John spoke whimsically. "I thought you would figure that out, Patrick, but I suppose you've had a lot on your mind. Brown-Morris was my first."

It made sense. "The killer was never caught." Jane said. He knew of Red John's first recognised cases, and Daryl Brown-Morris was not among them.

"_It was my very first kill."_ Red John explained. _"It was before I – how do these law-enforcement types put it? – developed my art, before I began leaving my signature. And before you ask, I killed him because one day, one very bad day, he took my seat on the bus. You CBI folks call that a "stressor"._

Jane turned this new information over in his mind. Most murderers start with one kill – usually triggered by a sudden violent surge of emotion following a period of stress or a shorter time-frame of great stress. Red John had lost his seat on a bus.

"What else happened that day? I don't think even you would kill someone because of a seat on a bus."

"_It's dangerous to speculate on why I do things, Patrick – don't forget. And you were wrong, by the way, on how you interpret my love for you. It really is love. A love of __**you**__, not the game although I must confess I do enjoy the chase and our much too infrequent encounters. I am not above admitting that I also harbour fantasies about you, some of which I intend to indulge in when the time is right. "_

"Not if I kill you first."

"_You'll never kill me, Patrick. What would you do with your life without me in it? After all this time and years of the game you think settling in to a boring routine of family life is going to satisfy your intellect? Routine stifles your soul, that's why you could never let go of the con', not even for your dear wife or daughter. You sold them into my hands for your own selfish wants, Patrick. I know you know that and blame yourself for it, but you should not blame yourself – it **is** who you are. Never apologise for who you are."_

"But why did you have to kill_ them_? You didn't touch Panzer's ex-wife or kids, but you killed mine – why?"

"_Panzer was a pathetic loner, a no-account blogger with visions of god-hood. He was a serial murderer who killed for impure reasons. He was no loss to the world at all. But **y-o-u-u-u**..." _

There was a pause and they could hear Red John's ragged breathing through the microphone. Jane closed his eyes to Red John's words of love and indulgence and the heavy breathing that told him...he did not want to think what. The killer's obsession went deeper than any of them had thought.

"_But **you**, Patrick, would have been a terrible loss. You, my dear Patrick Jane, are unique in this world. Your hunger for revenge is an honest, unsullied heart-fired lust that I can't help but admire. You are more like me than you know. Yes, we are two of a kind, Patrick. I love you **too much** to kill you."_

_Oh!_ Jane suddenly and silently understood something that had eluded him - a new and powerful insight into the killer. Why had he not seen it before? "So what you're saying is..._your _life would not be stimulating enough without _me_."

"_I suppose I am. Interesting, isn't it?"_

Jane was forced to admit that, yes, it was. His years of searching for Red John and dreaming about revenge had been some of the most intellectually satisfying of his life, and his work within the CBI was gratifying - even fulfilling. His memories of home and hearth and loving family sometimes seemed like a pleasant dream he'd had in another life-time. No matter how deeply his heart still ached over their loss, he wondered where he would be if he had not lost them.

"_You see I __**know**__, Patrick."_ Red John mused as Jane contemplated his personal, soul-shifting revelations_. "I know your marriage was on the rocks and a split was inevitable. Remember that you were a public figure then – a popular attraction if you will. The Amazing Jane. The Wonder of the Week. The newspaper articles were everywhere – the gossip was rife. But all that would have ended and people, as the fickle beings they are, would have moved on to the next and the newest act to titillate their senses, and then you would have become just another nobody as well. A nothing man in a hated job regretting your choices to the bitter end. _

"_It's your grieving heart, Patrick, that idealises your family now, but back then...back then you **knew** that your wife, no matter how often she may have reassured you to the contrary, was terribly unhappy. It is one thing to love someone, it is quite another to spend a lifetime with them."_

Jane shook his head. Red John was only partly right. He was now _not_ without hope in his life. He had retained at least that or, perhaps, had regained it within the CBI. Those with whom he daily worked held it out to him, the free and loving gift of themselves. His family was gone, and perhaps nothing may have been as wholly good as he remembered, but he knew she had loved him. The only time in his life he had ever experienced that with anyone.

Until now. Cho had actually said the word, and his friends at the CBI displayed it in their own ways each and every day. He was cared about. He was not alone anymore. His wife and daughter were dead but he still had a family. Lots of new things learned here today. "You're wrong."

"_Am I?"_

"Yes. Like all murderers you are egotistical to a fault. I know what I have and I will do whatever it takes to protect it, no matter what you personally do to me. What I have is something you'll never possess, if you ever did."

"_That sounded like a challenge, Patrick."_

He shrugged. "No, John, just the truth." Jane sat forward, the fatigue that had been plaguing him gone from his body, and lifted from his mind. "Is that it? Are we done this little charade? Are you going to keep your word?"

"_What do you think?"_

Jane felt a sudden thrill rush through him, leaving his nerve endings on fire. Red John loved him, or in his mind was in love with him in some sick, twisted way. Which meant Jane wielded at least some power over the killer. That, too, was a soul-shifting revelation. "I think you will keep your word if I ask you to, honestly and sincerely, from my heart to yours. Look into my eyes, John. If you love me as you say you do, I _know_ you can tell I'm not being facetious. I am asking you, humbly with my heart in my hand, to let Allison Schenn go, free and unharmed. Will you do that for me?"

There was a significant pause and just when Jane was sure Red John had disconnected his call, instead the killer answered. _"Yes, Patrick, I will do that for you. Only for you, I will not harm Allison Schenn."_

CBI

"No leads. Allison said she never saw her captor, and he had a cab drop her off at her home just after the show wrapped. We think Red John had an accomplice helping him make his phone connections to the studio, and that man was using several pre-paid cell phones and a lap-top while moving around from one place to the next – which is why we could never pin down the server. Allison said she had no idea where she was being held as she was blindfolded the whole time." Lisbon shrugged at the bitter irony of a serial killer keeping his promise. "Red John never hurt her. He kept his word." Lisbon explained to Bertram.

Bertram nodded. "How's Jane after all this? Do I need to call for a rubber van?"

Lisbon was sure Jane was going to be all right. He always was, after a fashion. "No. He's seems okay. As far as I can see he handled the whole thing well."

"You're biased, Agent Lisbon. I want him back in psych counselling this week with no excuses."

"Yes, sir."

CBI

The following day Lisbon met him in the kitchen. Jane has the water on to boil, enjoying the simple few moments of waiting for the kettle to sing, anticipating the flowery bouquet of the bergamot tea, and the savoury melting of the golden honey in the tea-cup. He was at CBI, a place and a work he had grown to love. Life was good.

"Hey Jane." Lisbon said.

"Morning Lisbon." He said, stirring his drink.

"Some bad news, well, sort of, I mean –"

"Vogel?" Jane asked.

She stopped short. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"He insulted Red John by interfering with Charlotte's body, by dirtying his "_art"_." Jane did _bunny ear_ motions in the air with his fingers.

"It looks like a Red John kill all-right. I'll bet Vogel never even knew what hit him." Lisbon handed the file to Jane.

Jane opened the folder and said. "Oh, I'll wager he knew. He knew for sure." It was delightful. The photos of Vogel's body splayed open like a fillet were satisfying and a perfect start to his day.

Vogel was dead by Red John's trusty knife. Jane had not had to lift a finger on that one. Life was very good. "He sure did."

"Well, Darcy drew the case so the FBI is taking this one. We, on the other hand, have a double murder in south Sac' to deal with."

Jane tried not to appear excited. It was harder, though, to keep the enthusiasm from his voice. "O-o-o, a _double_ murder? Double the bodies, double the fun." He quipped and Lisbon just rolled her eyes.

"Settle down." She said. "And get a move on."

"Can I ride with Cho?"

Lisbon pursed her lips. "Fine, but no funny stuff."

Jane smiled and found Cho gathering up his badge and gun, loading the clip and locking the safety in place. "Ready?" Jane asked.

Cho nodded. "You?"

"Yup." Jane said, feeling powerful and in total control of his life, right down to his laced leather shoes. "I'm riding with you."

"Okay." Cho slipped into his suit jacket. "I assume you heard what Karen Cross is doing?"

Jane didn't care what the damn woman did. "No."

"Writing a book about her experiences. She's already nabbed a publisher and a half a million contract."

"Ah." Jane said. "I have seen the evil-doer prosper." He quoted.

Cho didn't know where it was from. "Are you okay?"

Jane looked around; everyone else was already on their way down to the vehicles ans no one was in sight. He planted a big kiss on Cho's lips then let him go.

Cho looked at him sideways, not used to Jane being the aggressor when it came to the shared affections between them. "Answer me. Are you okay?"

"Extra okay in fact," He said. "Because I think Red John is going to leave us alone for a while."

Cho looked more worried now. "How do you know?"

Jane shrugged, enjoying the tiny bit of power he now possessed over Red John. Red John was not a figure of terror or all powerful, he was not a god or the devil, he was, in the final calling, just a man and like all other men.

He was weak.

Jane kissed Cho again. "Call it a hunch."

CBI END

Stay tuned for Case-file # 6: _**White and Red and Dead All **__**Over.**_ To save the team from a hostage situation at the CBI and solve the case of the hostage taker, Jane must resort to some old talents - and die! (NON-character death).


End file.
